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Vanilla NetHack hasn't had a release since 2003 but there have been several forks of it, one I did myself (look at my sig).

Considering the "far better roguelikes" that's something just asking for a flame war but I guess he thinks about ToME4 or Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

ToME4's root go back a long time, originally an Angband variant but the 4th version separated completely from that heritage and created vast amounts of original content that makes Skyrim look like a coffee-break activity.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is sort of an Anti-NetHack, trying to avoid many of the design mistake NetHack had. Like the needs for spoilers, that different races play the same in the long run, grinding, or that the game doesn't stay challenging after a certain point.

DCSS and ToME4 are big games but in the last years there has been a trend to develop smaller roguelikes. Like DoomRL which is exactly what its title says or roguelikes for mobile devices like 100Rogues and POWDER.

There are several ports of NetHack on Android and iPhone. But in any case just search in the market places / app stores of your device. Don't expect an official version from the DevTeam.

But especially with NetHack the amount of keys normally used is a real problem for a good port. NetHack's interface isn't easily translated on a hand held device.

You might want to try POWDER for a NetHack inspired roguelike that has been designed specifically for running on consoles. Which made it much easier to port to handhelds and smartphones.

One big feature of jailbreaking iPhones is that you can install apps on your iPhone in a similar manner that you could install NDS games on an R4. Does this also mean that jailbreaking an iPhone is illegal there, too? It should be noted that a major feature of the R4s, and similar devices, was that you can run homebrew on your NDS, which I have. There's some decent homebrew (not that great of a selection, but still some good stuff) available, such as the (excellent) roguelike game POWDER.

No one seems to have mentioned Jacob's Matrix http://www.zincland.com/7drl/jacob/, which is another excellent textual take on the portal idea.

There's also powder on the homebrew front. Likely there are several more.

For example, this book has a chapter where version control plays a key part (and there's an online version or dead tree version).

Powder: http://www.zincland.com/powder/ -- it's for the PocketPC, you can get the emulators from Microsoft if you want to see what it's like.

This game is similar to Nethack in play but has an interface that would probably work on the GBA (shoulder keys rotate through the menu, B to activate the menu, directions to move, and A to "do").

Layne

Of those, I think Powder DS is the most fun. It uses both screens, a touch interface, draggable buttons, and has (somewhat) remappable controls. It's also available in lot of different platforms if you want to try it on your desktop/laptop first.

1. Crawl - http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/
2. Letter hunt - http://www.zincland.com/7drl/letterhunt/
3. Tecmo-Bowl (nes) - best console football game ever (it's all about the gameplay and not about the graphics).
4. (missed greatly) 1990s Addams Family pinball game - the best pinball game ever made. Better than the 3/4ths of the machines in "The Lure of the Silver Ball" I've played.
5. (honorable mention) Capture the flag - Atari 2600 followed by Canyon Bomber, and Adventure (played on orignal 1978 Sears tele-games console until the controllers wore out and after we wore out playing with the controllers printed circuit board)

How about a Roguelike?