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Angband

A town, a staircase and a hundred levels of dungeon below it, with Sauron on level 99 and Morgoth on 100. Turn-based, free, and final when you die.

Play in the browser ↗Official site ↗

A stone staircase in a tunnel, leading up to the light
Photo: Stjepan Gadze / Unsplash

Facts

The facts

Runs it
Volunteers led by Nick McConnell
Since
1990; public since 1993
To start
On Angband.live, type a nickname and a password; a new name creates an account. No email. You can watch other people's games without playing.
Phone browser
Controls assume a numpad or the vi keys, so a phone without a keyboard is impractical. There is no official phone version.
Money
Free and open-source. Angband.live has no shop, subscription or ads.
Paid random items
None. Nothing is for sale. Some other variants on the same server have an in-town casino that uses game gold only; vanilla Angband 4.2 has none.
Languages
English
Age
No age rating, and Angband.live shows no terms or minimum age.
Company
Single-player, with live spectating, chat, a ladder of character sheets and the main Angband forum around it.
Status
Version 4.2.6 was released in December 2025 and weekly builds continue (the latest on 20 October 2026). Twelve people were online when we checked.

Profile

What it asks of you

  • ReadingLetters, symbols and item lore
  • PaceTurn-based; think before each step
  • WaitingNo timers of any kind
  • CompanySingle-player, with spectators

How it plays

How Angband plays

Angband is one of the founding roguelikes. The dungeon is drawn in letters and symbols, every level is generated fresh, and a character who dies is gone for good. Progress is what you learn about monsters, items and your own judgement.

Angband.live, built by Gwarl with help from kt, runs the current version and many variants in the browser and lets anyone watch live games, which is a good way to learn. Its home page counts the latest deaths and victories as they happen.

Your first half hour

  1. 0–5 min
    Register on Angband.live with a nickname and an eight-character password, then start vanilla Angband 4.2.
  2. 5–15 min
    Pick a race and class; a warrior is the forgiving start. Buy a light source, potions and flasks of oil in town.
  3. 15–30 min
    Take the stairs down, read the screen slowly and expect your first character to die. Watching a live game shows what experienced players buy.

Accounts and ages

Angband.live asks for a nickname of 3 to 25 characters and a password of at least 8. There is no email, so a forgotten password cannot be reset by mail.

Angband has no age rating and the site publishes no terms. Monsters are drawn as letters, but the descriptions of fights are plain about death.

Sources

Angband facts checked on 23 October 2026. How we check.

Suits

Players who want a fair single-player RPG with nothing to buy and no clock to beat.

Harder for

Anyone who hates losing a character or wants pictures: death is permanent and the screen is text.

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