Delve Deeper

Mi metto a cercare un vostro contatto con violenza, e vi scrivo!
Conosco HDK!!! Figata totale!

it's not a bug. It's a (partial) citation from the last verse of the Inferno (Hell) part of The Divine Comedy, in its native language, and the game designer wanted to keep it that way on purpose.

Inferno, XXXIV

My Leader then, and I,
in order to regain the world of light,
entered upon that dark and hidden path;
and, without caring for repose, went up,
he going on ahead, and I behind,
till through a rounded opening I beheld
some of the lovely things the sky contains;
thence we came out, and saw again the stars.

Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso 
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo; 
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,
salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo, 
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle 
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo. 
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.     

Dude, I'm so glad you liked it! There Will be and update soon with some extra goodies and several bugfixings.

Lol. Here, grab some of my chill mate.

Thank you for being the first hater here, and it's not trolling: you just told me we can reach you somehow, and in a sense I understand we speak the same language. And remember that no matter genre preference, retrogaming should be a friendly club. So please do not assume i am trying to ruin someone else party here . Enjoy your cup of tea while I enjoy mine, muddled as it may be.

Just a couple of points from a design point of view.

I think it's funny how you think of this game as a "modern cancer roguelike". Nah. It's like rogue in the sense it's random. A lot of random stuff. And it's got dungeon and you can only go down. That's it.

And it's "-like" because Rogue Is so damn big and awesome and I can't redesign it. Don't rage so much over a label. This game has got literally NOTHING of modern roguelikes.  I don't personally like most of them, net hack is my thing.

It also is not an attempt at Doom. It would be AWESOME in that case, innit? Fantasy doom /heretic on commodore? I'm on board. But no, i can't code that. First person in this case is a homage to Classic dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master. I suppose you know this games but in case you do not, give them a spin. You'll love them.

Mechanically speaking, this game have nothing in common with a jrpg. It Rolls d20 and has a mechanic inspired by the likes of Frostgrave, not Final Fantasy. Yeah, I'm a miniature nerd.

Long may live Dig Dug, but there's more to the c64 than arcade ports. And also, i would have loved a game like this and i am sharing it. Nobody Is talking away glory or glamour from arcades.

Wish you long 'n fun gaming days reflex, see you around.

P.s. not that I'm a fan of those, but you Just gave me motivation to design a c64 soulslike. XD

Edit: typos 

Hi! I'm thingumbob and i am the dude responsible for the manual. And i am also QUITE LATE on it xD. I apologize, but I'm working on it in order to be a fun and pleasing product / meta-content for Delve Deeper. My partner in crime Griffon just told me he's gonna upload some Quick reference guide in the meantime.

Thank you for your understanding and please bear with me .

The game has Indeed some peculiar lore i'd love to share with you in a proper medium.

Love, 

Thingum "Bobbe" Bob

Hello!
Thingum_Bob already replied to this question, but as a stopgap measure, I've added to the download section a quick reference guide, with some tips and a healthy dose of humor inside. Hope you like it, while the full manual is being worked on!

Hello! The game uses the standard kernel load routines, which aren't known for their speed. I am surely not a master C64 programmer, and in fact the game has been written in XC-basic (https://xc-basic.net/), not in assembly. Surely someone expert in assembly would have been able to write a fastload routine, and would have been able to write code in a more efficient way. But alas, that someone is not I.
A side effect of using compiled code, is that some revisions just do not work when compressed. I haven't a clue of what triggers this problem, and it has been a mad rush to get the game out before Xmas (although it was a self-imposed limitation, we would have never released it if we didn't set a date for ourselves). That being said, I'll make sure that the post Xmas updates will have compressed executables. Those quicken the initial load time (aka, the black screen one) by around 60%. I strongly suggest using a kung-fu flash cartridge on original hardware if that load speed won't be enough. On VICE, CTRL+W activates warp mode that will considerably speed load times up.
About the other suggestions, I will try to implement them in the next update as well. Really, the only limit is the meager amount of free memory, but I'll try :)
Thanks for the feedback!