Nethack 20 Years Old Today

An Anonymous Reader wrote in to mention that, according to an informational page about the venerable game Hack, today is Hack's 20th birthday. From the page: "In December 1984 I distributed Hack 1.0 in the newsgroup net.sources.... [T]here were 15 pieces, all sent out on 17-Dec-84." From the reader: "This was the first widespread distribution of the game, which was created by Jay Fenlason a couple of years previously. Nethack's history continues here. You can download this descendant of Rogue from its home page, or connect to a nethack server. Many nethack veterans try their hand at Slash'EM, a.k.a., "nethack on amphetamines". Here's to another 20 years of training your dog to rip off shopkeepers."

Comments

Re:Too young

[Tired_Blood]

It's essentially single-player D&D.

The best way to understand is to just play the game. I suggest a non-ascii (graphical) version, since you'll probably strain your eyes (and brain) with the original while trying to figure out what each onscreen character represents.

I started playing Nethack a couple months ago and find myself enjoying it more than most games for two reasons: 1. it's a small complex game, and 2. the dungeon maps always change. In fact, if you load a saved game, the maps of unexplored levels will also change on each reload.

But to answer your question properly, look here

Other varients

[GoNINzo]

There are other networked varients out there which are neat. Like Mangband ( Mulitplayer Angband, a spin off of moria, which is a spin off of hack), and TomeNet (there is another site but it's slow right now.)

I run a server for both games on wckg.net. The main server for tomenet is europe.tomenet.net. They are both fun. `8r)

Three Words

[Icephreak1]

Best. Game. Ever.

- IP