who said the best things in life aren't free?

i'm not convinced that is the case, and i've been pleasantly surprised to find freeware computer games that have more interesting and in depth gameplay than the majority of recent games on the market.

it all began with nethack and i just discovered angband tonight. my criteria for downloads: it must be easy to download (i don't have the techie skill to actually compile anything), and it must have a basic graphics set (i can't quite bring myself to play a game in ASCII character set).

a bonus is that these games are tiny to download (because they aren't graphics intensive) and they can be played on pretty much any machine you have (especially since some have been under development for the last 15 years).

the graphics ARE basic - but the gameplay is just astounding. especially if you are into D&D type gameplay (with races, classes, alignments, stats / abilities, spellbooks /scrolls, weapons / armor and the like with the all important TURN BASED COMBAT. and there are quirky things like wielding a cockatrice corpse (stones enemies) - but if you wear it while overburdened while descending a staircase you are liable to fall on it and stone yourself to death - ak!

http://www.dosgames.com/g_rpg.php

screenshots available from the link. (wikipedia also has an extensive 'spoiler' available from googling 'wikihack')

anyone else into these?