Nethack 3.4.0

Dark_Nova writes "Nethack 3.4.0 - the latest version of the greatest game ever created - has just been released. See the release notes for details about what's new, or go here to download it."

Comments

What is NetHack?

[rtos]

What do you mean you've never heard of Nethack?!

I'm surprised to read quite a few posts from people saying "What's Nethack?" ... well, here's some information to get you started on an answer:

Unsung Heros: NetHack : "NetHack is a spectacular dungeon crawl that has been in development for more than 15 years. It's the only game in this feature that we can refer to in the present tense, because it is the only game still being actively worked on. It features random dungeons, enough monsters to fill an AD&D menagerie, and enough commands to create a programming language."

The Gamespy Hall of Fame : "Here's a game that's been under continuous development for over 15 years. It has no graphics, unless you count the primitive patterns made of ascii characters. And yet is has a huge following -- a very active newsgroup, fans all over the globe, and many instances of major media coverage. There's some kind of magic in NetHack, a world so huge and complex that every game is completely different, where each new item can twist the gameplay in new directions. Mostly we love it for the surprises -- the number of times you try some amazingly obscure action and find out that it works, leaving slump back in your chair and exclaim, 'They thought of everything!'"

Salon: The Best Game Ever : "But as any hacker worth the title will tell you, Nethack is still one of the best games ever made. What's more, it's one of the best open-source games ever made -- meaning anyone who cares can grab ahold of the game's source code and make changes and improvements. The player's guide is even authored by none other than open-source ontologist Eric S. Raymond..."

The Nethack Homepage : "Nethack is a single player, ASCII graphics-based adventure game, similar to the lines of Dungeons & Dragons and similar fantasy games. It is commonly classified in the larger group of Rogue-like Games, which generally are all text-based, solo adventures. Within the game, your character is after the infamous Wizard of Yendor, who has stolen the Amulet of Yendor and plans to use it for his evil purposes. You, a young member of your chosen class, have been blessed by your people and your god to retrieve the Amulet, and to save the world from the Wizard's evil plans."

Variants and Utilities : "One of the most impressive features of Nethack is the amount of 3rd party developed material that either is a varient of the Nethack game, or can be used to enhance your Nethack gaming experience. You'll find both variants and utilites for Nethack listed on this page."

But this one may be (in my biased opinion) the coolest project of all...

Nethack-Palm Porting Project : "The Nethack-Palm porting project is a loosely-knit group of Nethack and Palm enthusiasts who are working to port the classic game Nethack to the Palm platform. The project is well underway, but still far from complete so we welcome any new contributors." (See also Roguelikes for PalmOS)

So there you go. NetHack. What is it? The longest running, most amazing, coolest, open source game in the history of computers.... or something. :) But seriously, if you've never played NetHack, give it a try. It's worth it, if nothing else, just to say you did.

Release notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Posted anonymously, because I'm not karma whoring.

The NetHack DevTeam is pleased to announce the release of NetHack 3.4.0.

NetHack 3.4 is an enhancement to the dungeon exploration game NetHack. It is a distant descendent of Rogue and Hack, and a direct descendent of NetHack 3.3.

There are a great number of bug fixes in this release, as well as many changes and surprises beyond what you see listed below. Here is a brief overview of some new additions and changes in the game.

• Many, many bug fixes and tweaks to the core code and to several ports
• Enhanced config file processing and player selection prompts for some ports
• Stamina affects ability to throw heavy things
• Objects merge in containers
• Wish for "nothing", and genocide "none" to preserve your conduct
• Several small refinements to race/role separation
• Config file BOULDER option to specify the symbol for displaying boulders
• Riding has been improved
• New travel command which is particularly helpful for mouse navigation on handheld computers
• more feedback about skill advancement from #enhance command
• End-of-game disclose options can be individually tuned to your liking
• Mac: command-key shortcuts in the player selection dialog
• Amiga: screenmode requester
• Win32: new graphical interface contributed by Alex Kompel

We've also included variations of enhancements contributed by members of the NetHack community at large. Among them:

• Scott Bigham's new T-shirt messages and his option to turn off resistance display effects
• Malcolm Ryan's option for "autodig"
• Jay Tilton's full-screen message window display via control-P
• Dylan O'Donnell's patch for optionally starting with no pet
• Tom Friedetzky's blessed/uncursed/cursed selection patch for menustyle:full
• Jason Short's additional lens uses
• Kelly Bailey's Gnomish Mines changes
• Ken Arnold's patch to display prices in your inventory

A fuller list of changes for this release can be found in the file doc/fixes34.0 in the source distribution. The text in there was written for the development team's own use and is provided "as is", so please do not ask us to further explain the entries in this file.

The NetHack 3.4.0 source code supports many different platforms including most Unix versions, Windows, DOS, Linux, Apple Macintosh(tm), Apple Macintosh OS X(tm), OS/2(tm), Atari(tm), and Amiga(tm).

Also, note that the Gnome toolkit interface is still considered an experimental option. We have not enhanced the port ourselves, and so far we have not received any contributions doing so from the NetHack community.

-- Happy NetHacking! --