External Links


Story file, stable version (release 9) *
Contains Kerkerkruip.gblorb
The recommended version.
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Story file, latest beta (release 10 beta) *
Contains Kerkerkruip.gblorb
Permanent link to the latest beta release of Kerkerkruip.
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Story file, release 1
The original version as entered in the 2011 IF Comp
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Beginner's Guide
To view this file, you need an Acrobat Reader for your system.
README
Brief note from the author
Videos note
Introduction to the videos, where the author plays Kerkerkruip and explains the basic concepts of the game.
the Complete Set of Introductory Video Files via Direct Link *
If the links provided within the above URL are not functioning, you can conveniently access all the introductory videos by downloading the entire set as a zip archive.
This is a pseudo-format used to represent download adviser records that apply to multiple formats.
Source code repository
This is a pseudo-format used to represent download adviser records that apply to multiple formats.
* Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Kerkerkruip

by Victor Gijsbers profile

Dungeon crawl
2011

Web Site

(based on 68 ratings)
10 reviews

About the Story

Kerkerkruip is a short-form roguelike in the interactive fiction medium, featuring meaningful tactical and strategic depth, innovative game play, zero grinding, and a sword & sorcery setting that does not rehash tired clichés.


Game Details


Awards

8th Place overall; 3rd Place, Miss Congeniality Award - 17th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2011)

Winner, Best Use of Innovation; Winner, Best Supplemental Materials - 2011 XYZZY Awards

13th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2015 edition)

23rd Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)

49th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2023 edition)


News

The Kerkerkruip team is happy to announce the release of Kerkerkruip 9, by far the most extensive update of the game ever made. Kerkerkruip is a short-form roguelike in the interactive fiction medium, featuring meaningful tactical and strategic depth, innovative game play, zero grinding, and a sword & sorcery setting that does not rehash tired clichés.

With over 700 commits to the code repository, the changes made in Kerkerkruip 9 are far too numerous to mention here. But the highlights are:

* Original theme music for the main menu, composed and produced by Wade Clarke.
* An entirely reworked reaction system allows you to dodge, block, parry and roll away from incoming attacks. Successful reactions increase your offensive or defensive flow, adding a new layer of tactical depth to combat.
* An entirely reworked religion system allows you to sacrifice absorbed powers to the gods. Worshipping gods grants lasting benefits, including divine interventions on your behalf; but losing absorbed powers makes you weaker in the short term. Religion thus becomes an important aspect of the player's overall strategy.
* Grenades can now be thrown into adjacent rooms, opening up new tactical options. However, your enemies may sometimes manage to throw them back to you!
* A powerful new grenade is the Morphean grenade, which puts people to sleep. If you become its victim, you'll find yourself drawn into one of several dream sequences: weird and dangerous adventures that have an effect on the real world.
* The hiding system has been streamlined, boosted and made far more transparent. Stealth has now become a viable option.
* The player now starts out with one of several starting kits, necessitating different approaches to the dungeon.
* New content includes the angel of compassion, a radiant being that loses its lustre as people die around it; Israfel, a terrible angel that can split into two smaller beings for increased combat effectiveness before reuniting to heal; and the Arena of the Gods, where you can defend your god's honour against other divine champions.
* A new Menu implementation which is both screen reader friendly and hyperlink enabled.

We are now also offering stand-alone installers for specific operating systems. While it's still possible to download the game file and run it in your favourite Glulx interpreter, there are also installers for Windows and Debian/Ubuntu. We will be supporting OS X in the near future.

Finally, we have a new website at http://kerkerkruip.org. That's where you should go for downloads, more information about the game and how to contribute, and a link to the wiki.

Kerkerkruip is presented to you by the Kerkerkruip team: Victor Gijsbers, Mike Ciul, Dannii Willis, Erik Temple and Remko van der Pluijm. We hope you enjoy the new version. If you've got any comments, or if you'd like to contribute to this free software project, please go the website for details and contact us!
Reported by Victor Gijsbers (updated on April 13, 2014) | History | Edit | Delete
We've made a minor but significant update of Kerkerkruip 8, which you therefore might want to redownload.

* An optimisation of the windows drawing code makes some of the graphical operations *much* faster. This is especially notable when returning from the map to the main game window.
* Fixed a bug with how the psycholocation scroll worked in non-graphical mode.

Note that due to the nature of the Glulx virtual machine, this will break existing saved games; so if you're in the middle of a game, you might want to finish that first.

Have fun!

The Kerkerkruip team (Victor Gijsbers, Dannii Willis, Erik Temple, Remko van der Pluijm)
Reported by Victor Gijsbers | History | Edit | Delete
The Kerkerkruip team is very pleased to release version 8 of the interactive fiction roguelike Kerkerkruip! This release brings some major interface changes, including:

* Introductory movies.
* A graphical main menu.
* After you defeat a monster, it will be added to your Rogues Gallery, a collection of trading cards with stats that summarize your history with each enemy.
* Side panels that allow you to see your inventory, status and granted powers at all times.
* A graphical map that is automatically updated as you explore the dungeon.

Don't worry: you can also play Kerkerkruip in non-graphical mode if you are using screen reader technology or a slow computer. The game will ask you for your preference when it is first started.

There are of course also many changes to the game itself:

* Several new rooms: the Hall of Raging Banshees, the Columnated Ruins, the Tungausy Sweat Lodge, the Zen Room, and the rare but powerful Arena of the Fallen.
* New items, including the dagger Giantbane; scrolls of mutation, mapping, and psycholocation; magical guides that allow you to identify scrolls; and the crown of the god-king.
* A new level 4 enemy, the overmind. It is weak, but it strengthens all its allies, and can call them to its aid when endangered.
* Two new combat reactions: rolling (a more dangerous but potentially devastating form of dodging) and blocking (a form of parrying in which you use your concentration for extra defence).
* Blood magic, which allows you to feed your own health to items in order to make them more powerful. Are you willing to take the risk? Of course you are. Are you willing to take it a second time, trading more blood for more power? What about a third time?
* A small but very significant tweak to the combat system: you can now snort ment during fights!
* And many other additions, tweaks and bug fixes.

As always, we hope you'll enjoy the new version! To play Kerkerkruip:

* Download the zip file http://lilith.cc/~victor/kerkerkruip/Kerkerkruip.zip , and unzip it in a location of your choice. It contains the game file and a .ini file for Gargoyle.
* Download the latest version of the Gargoyle interactive fiction interpreter: http://code.google.com/p/garglk/downloads/list . It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux!
* Open the game file Kerkerkruip.gblorb with gargoyle, and you're ready to go.
Reported by Victor Gijsbers | History | Edit | Delete
More news... | Add a news item

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(24)
4 star:
(29)
3 star:
(15)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 10
Write a review


Most Helpful Member Reviews


25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
An exciting new take on dungeoncrawling., May 17, 2013
by Wade Clarke (Sydney, Australia)
Related reviews: IFComp 2011, Inform, RPG

I had a problem during the 2011 Interactive Fiction Competition. I was supposed to be getting a move on and reviewing all of the other entrants' games, but I kept procrastinating by sneaking away to play Kerkerkruip. By the time the competition was over, I had played it at least 50 times in my quest to complete the game on Normal difficulty. This is testimony to Kerkerkruip's addictiveness, which grows out of the stiff but strategically overcomeable challenge it presents and the relatively infinite pool of circumstantial variations it offers to dungeongoers. The latter quality is what makes the game really memorable and anecdote-worthy once a player has got a handle on its mechanics.

A moment's divergence for the consumer guide part of this review: Kerkerkruip is certainly not a traditional IF game or text adventure in which the player solves unchanging puzzles en route to particular goals while possibly becoming involved in a narrative the author has laid out. This is a high-stakes game of Dungeons & Dragons adventuring in randomly generated dungeons. At the same time, it is delivered by text and controlled by a parser, and uses explorative elements in some typical adventure game-like ways. In all of these capacities, it is obviously from the school of text adventures, and not completely unlike a combat MUD or a modern incarnation of Eamon, though a plotless one. Also note that it is essential to at least read the Beginner's Guide before playing (I found this three page guide to be the easiest way into the game, as opposed to traveling through multiple inline HELP menus) or Kerkerkruip will promptly kick you to the pavement.

Your goal is to find and kill the evil wizard Malygris of the dungeon Kerkerkruip. You begin armed with a rapier; more significant weaponry and equipment must be found in the dungeon. Usually there will be about five other groups of monsters lurking around, and it is only by defeating these monsters and absorbing their powers and health in a wisely chosen order (new powers only accumulate if they are weaker than powers you already possess) that you will have a hope of becoming powerful enough to defeat the wizard. The dungeon contents and layout and the roster of monsters change every time you die or restart. You can't save the game except to take a break, and there is no UNDO. These danger-increasing elements are common to another genre of game Kerkerkruip announces that it belongs to: the roguelike, named, unsurprisingly, after a particular game called Rogue.

Movement is handled with the traditional compass commands, augmented by a "go to" command and a handy "remember" command, but the combat makes use of the ATTACK system originated by the author and is divided into Action and Reaction phases. By working with just a handful of well balanced temporal elements, Kerkerkruip ensures each decision you make about what to do next in battle carries significant weight. Should you Attack now, or build up the strength of your next attack by pausing to Concentrate? You can try to build up to three levels of concentration, but if you're struck in the meantime, your concentration will be broken. On the other hand, if you never concentrate, your attacks won't grow strong enough to finish off the bad guys before they finish you.

This core system is simple enough for anyone to understand, but its application in any moment is modified by a huge number of variables, amongst them: the geography of the room you're in (e.g. it doesn't pay to Dodge while fighting on a narrow bridge over lava), the nature and habits of the enemy you're facing (e.g. animated daggers attack ceaselessly and break your concentration as often – the jumping bomb will never break your concentration, but if it gathers enough concentration itself, it will explode and kill you instantly), the Tension in the air (how long has it been since anyone last struck a blow?), your current status and arsenal of powers, and the interference of a further array of supernatural stuff like fickle dungeon gods or weird summoned entities.

The sum effect of the play amongst all these interrelated elements is that Kerkerkruip is capable of generating the exciting sense that with almost every move you make, the whole game is at stake. The circumstances of danger can rearrange themselves into so many different patterns that a lot of your battles will strike you as uniquely memorable, even when you're dealing with the same small roster of monsters over and over again. You can marvel at a seemingly (or actually) brilliant series of moves you make that succeed in resuscitating your prospects when you're down to 1 hp. Similarly you can laugh at the results of a particularly bold, stupid or unlucky move that backfires spectacularly, or at some confluence of events so extraordinary that you'll feel like telling someone else about it. You will certainly die far more often than you will win, but this is a game where experience, exploration and repeat plays really pay off, and the strategic element is always vivid, the prospect of victory always tantalising.

Ultimately, Kerkerkruip is an essential and massively replayable game for dungeon and combat fans, and also demonstrates the kind of novelty and elegant design that is inspiring in general.

Note: this review is based on older version of the game.
Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Rogue-tastic!, January 3, 2012
by Joey Jones (UK)

When I first played this game, I played it six times. That's how hard it is. That's how addictive it is. Kerkerkruip is a rogue-like text adventure, in which you travel about a randomly generated dungeon, killing enemies, picking up equipment, employing tactics and dying. A lot.

The game isn't a perfectly smooth interactive story where you play out complex motivations while unveiling a carefully crafted plot. It's not trying to do that. So of course the writing is sparse, and the synonyms sparser. That's goes with the territory. If I was making the game, I would have added an additional layer of randomisation to the monsters- giving named characters a different name and apparel each time and so on. As it was, there were enough antagonists that the game remained fresh through six play-throughs, and I was pleased that some enemies (like the Reaper) changed their weapons. The real joy of the game is that it's more than a complex dungeon-crawl simulator, it's a puzzle. Figuring out which enemies to fight, how, and in which order are vital to successfully completing the game.

Every time I played Kerkerkruip I discovered something new, died in an interesting way and wanted to go back for more. All in all, a great roguelike! Two thumbs up!

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent and innovative, August 8, 2013

I may as well nail my colours to the mast: I'm a big fan of roguelikes, and Kerkerkruip does an excellent job of transferring the roguelike dungeon-crawl experience to a text medium. It reminded me a lot of "The Reliques of Tolti-Aph", another game I love (though I recognise that it's an acquired taste), but is easier and less unforgiving. The enemies and many of the items are innovative.

It's not the kind of game you play for the prose or the mood. The writing is workmanlike a lot of the time, but that doesn't mean that it's bad (in case anyone were expecting bad writing from Gijsbers): there are some excellent descriptions (I particularly like the mirror room and the phantasmagoria). Battle descriptions are nice and varied. Humour is sparse, but excellent.

Is it a perfect roguelike? Is anything on this earth perfect? No. The small size of the game world, while necessary (and obviating the need of a map, or of hours of free time) means that the game doesn't have one of my favourite features of roguelikes: the exploration. The randomly generated dungeon means that there is no real sense of build-up: it is possible (at least in earlier versions) to spawn in the room next to the final boss. There is no complex plot, and little sense of the wider world of the game, other than some scattered sword & sorcery tropes. (Though, again, this isn't a game you play for the plot or worldbuilding.)

Those quibbles aside, I love it. Highly recommended if you enjoy RPGs and have fifteen minutes to spare. And finally, kudos to mynheer Gijsbers for continuing to develop and upgrade this game. He has created something innovative and wonderful.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (2) - Add comment 

See All 10 Member Reviews

If you enjoyed Kerkerkruip...

Related Games

Other members recommend this game for people who like Kerkerkruip:

Wumpus 2000, by Muffy St. Bernard
Average member rating: (4 ratings)

Suggest a game

Recommended Lists

Kerkerkruip appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Recommended list by DAB

Most unusual games by MathBrush
These are games that are very different than most games on IFDB. Some games that are exceptional in execution (like Counterfeit Monkey) are derived from concepts that are similar to other games (like Andrew Schultz's or Ad Verbum). This...

A Year on IFDB: The games that have stayed with me by Spike
About a year ago I discovered post-AGT interactive fiction. Since then I've played a lot of great IF games. This list consists of the ones that have stuck with me the most. They're not necessarily the ones I rated the highest immediately...

See all lists mentioning this game

Polls

The following polls include votes for Kerkerkruip:

Games with high replay value by Wendymoon
What games do you find yourself returning to again and again? Maybe to get every last lousy point, to do some amusing things, to try for different endings or just for the enjoyment of replaying?

The most enjoyable Z-code games by Fredrik Ramsberg
I'd like to compile a list of some of the most enjoyable games available in Z-code format (blorbed or not). Please add games that you thoroughly liked, and vote for games already on the list. Everything from short pieces to epic works...

im looking for a awsome game with wizards by kenzie da pirate
lava walking shoes are cool and i like unicorns

See all polls with votes for this game




This is version 28 of this page, edited by Dannii on 30 September 2023 at 1:43am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page