Good points Dark, it's just that with the game as short as it is, and with the optimal strategy being invariant from game to game, it isn't something I'm going to love for a long time.  The lure of new content for higher levels of achievement is a good incentive, but I still feel like I want something a little more variable.

You're right though, I'm not sure how to do it while staying within the large frame of the game.

And to the developers, please understand this is not to say you haven't created an excellent game of its scale, I'm just a demanding weeny-head who wants more of a good thing.  Just call me Oliver.

Madviolinist, I understand your point, but I don't think it is true. At least I hope it's not -- if it is, we need to tweak some numbers.

Choosing the order in which you want to kill the monsters should be atrategic decision based on weighing short-term risk against long-term risk. Killing low level monsters first will minimise short-term risk, but will maximise long-term risk. For instance, you probably won't die if you do 1-2-1-3-2-4, but then you'll have to attack Malygris with only a level 4 power, which will be very difficult. On the other hand, going for high level monsters first will maximise short-term risk, but will minimise long-term risk. Your proposed order, 2-1-4-3-2-1, exemplifies this: if you manage to pull it off, then killing Malygris will be easy, but pulling it off won't be easy.

(I'm neglecting two additional complications: that it can be good to soften up a monster even though you know you'll have to retreat; and that it can be useful to keep a low-level monster alive as a source of health.)

So for this part of Kerkerkruip to be strategically interesting, it ought to be the case that the optimal strategy lies somewhere between these two extremes, though where it lies should depend on context. For this to be the case, it should be true that if you choose 1-2-1-3-2-4, Malygris will be too tough. It should also be the case that if you choose 2-1-4-3-2-1, the first and the third fight especially are too tough. It is my impression that this is the case; that, for instance, taking on a level 2 creature as the first creature in the game mostly doesn't work -- at least not on Adept and higher difficulty. You generally need to start with a level 1 creature. If you think I'm wrong about this, let me know; that would something that needs to be tweaked.

(By the way, two new monsters that should also shake up this reasoning a bit are on the way: a level 1 creature that gives you a negative power, which becomes positive only after it is driven out of your body; and a level 4 creature that is very weak, but that strengthens all the other creatures in the game. Nevertheless, it is important that the system is intersting even without these additions,)

Dark, as for your claim that there is a limit to the amount of content the game can have -- that's true for a single game, but of course not for the game as a whole! While Kerkerkruip would not be Kerkerkruip anymore if it turned into a long game, I certainly hope to put it full of surprising content that will make you come back for more.

Victor, thanks for the indepth reply.  The following comes from a fair amount of play, though not exhaustive.

The level 2 fight at first is the least likely of success.  If I can manage the 2 1 part of the optimal sequence, the 4 3 2 1 part of it is almost a given at least at levels up to 2.  Malygris is still a difficult match that depends as much on what gear I've managed to gather as anything else. 

For less optimal sequences, life does get harder, but for the most part, I have not yet encountered a situation where I had to choose a sub-optimal arrangement.  There was one game where I was in fact surrounded in the entrance hall by a 1, a 3 and a 4, but no 2 in sight.  i took my chances and sprinted past the 1 and in fact found my 2, at which point the rest of the round fell into place.  I had a similar experience where the topology didn't work out so well, and I ended up dying in my first fight because of being weakened by getting hit while running through occupied rooms.  So luck in arrangement does play a role, but perhaps it does not affect the optimality of the strategy as much as it should.

Now I've not achieved super high levels, so I can't speak to the difficulty of playing there.  Likely it does change so that you have to play the hand you're dealt more so than at lower levels.  This would run the risk of making luck too important, which is a really difficult balance to maintain.

Please understand, I do really enjoy this game and find a lot of its concepts quite fascinating.  I'm just a game design geek thinking out loud.  I'm looking forward to any new updates or releases in the works.

I have to put in my two sense in disagreement with Dark.  In short, if you want Alter Aeon, you know where to find it.  A text game like dark is describing seems to me like it would just become a single player autogenerated mud.  One of the things I do really like about Kerkerkruip is that it is a game with a mostly defined length. That means I can get in a quick game over my lunch hour, or on the bus, or whatever.  Advancing levels make it replayable, but each individual game is short enough to finish in one sitting. This is something I really like. I find with longer games like Entombed, I'm splitting my play over many, many sessions. This causes me to forget what skills my party has, what equipment I want, etc.  Kerkerkruip, while just as difficult as these longer games, is set-up much better for casual play.

Hi.
Someone said that kikerkruip can be played in parchment. Isn't parchment only for zcode games? And isn't kirkerkruip in glulx format?
I recall Andrew Plotkin writing a java glulx vm called Quixe, but wouldn't Quixe be incompatible with parchment?