Yup followed that. Hmmm... did respect --width/height (the example with hex fontalso resulted in smaller font). For fullscreen tweak main-sdl.c (also width/height can be hardcoded there).
Greatest news is: curses works! Connects and shows map. Sweeet. Now to give it VI keys and will be awesome multiplayer roguelike fun.
(on a side note: beginning to suspect your libsdl-image might be behind the error reported. Also happened to me when force-closing little big adventure, kind of suspicious coincidence (never seen it before and relates to images), going to revert to standard sdl libs and try compiling this again to confirm)
Thanks!