Score

The total score is based on three main factors: The Quest, your experience level, and the number of turns your game lasted.

The Quest is worth up to 13,050 points for a win, or about 3,000 max for a non-win:

• (Lowest level reached - 1) * 50 points --First level gives no points. (Max: 1200)
• If you have the black heart:
  • 500 points for having the heart.
  • 50 points for each level you got back up. (Max: 1250)
• If you won (reached level 0 with the heart): 10,000 points

Experience is worth 100 points per level gained, with partial credit.

• (Experience level - 1) * 100 points --First experience level gives no points. (Max: ???)
• Score equal to 1/10 remaining experience (Max 100)

These time penalties are only subtracted if you won the game (no penalty if you die):

• For the first 20,000 turns: 0.1 point for each turn. (max: -2000, 1000 turns/100 points)
• For each turn between 20,000 and 60,000 turns: 0.2 points for each turn. (max: -8,000, 500 turns/100 points)
• For each turn between 60,000 and 120,000 turns: 0.3 points for each turn. (max: -18,000, 333 turns/100 points)
• For each turn between 120,000 and 240,000 turns: 0.4 points for each turn. (max: -48,000, 250 turns/100 points)
• For each turn after 240,000 turns: 1.3 points for each turn. (77 turns/100 points. Source comment: "Please turn off your bot. kthx")

Sanity checking: Anything you score more than 32768 is divided by 100. I.e. having 32868 points will result in a score of 32768 + (32868 - 32768)/100 = 32769. (In practice, this should never happen, as it would imply an experience level well over 200!) Furthermore, your total score can never be smaller than 1 point, nor higher than 65535.

Supposing you won the game, you can only increase your score by finishing the game quicker and by being more experienced. However, since getting more experienced costs you a lot of turns, the time penalty can easily outweigh the experience payoff. Typical wins (including the examples in the source) seem to run around 6,000 to 8,000 points. Svendre's Power Gaming guide claims to get through the dungeon in less than 20,000 turns, which would mean a score over 11,000. Depending how the game counts finishing as an iron golem, the final score could be over 14,000.