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

Cool maths

[Saiyine]

So a game created "a couple of years" before 1984 is twenty years old today?

Re:Cool maths

[Zach Garner]

So a game created "a couple of years" before 1984 is twenty years old today?

That's the difference between creation date and release date. It's common to focus more on the release date.

For a real world example: Many americans believe that people are created sometime before they are born. But still the birth date (somewhat equivalent to a software release date) is used for most purposes.

My oldest and least successful hobby

[Nine Tenths of The W]

I must be the worst Nethack player ever - I've been through various states of addiction to it for 16 years and have still to ever get past the 14th level of the dungeon

Too young

[clickster]

I was 6 when it was released, so could someone please give a basic rundown of what Hack and its many variants are?

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

Re:Too young

[Tired_Blood]

Ahhh, whatever.

Even though a defensive rant is probably unneccessary (I'm still unsure if your comment is in jest), here goes:

That savegame procedure IS cheating (technically speaking) but, honestly, what's it matter to you? There's no way that that cheat could affect your appreciation of the game (it's not multiplayer and I never made any claim of progress).

The point is, I just recently started so I'm still learning (a couple months, as opposed to your claim of a couple decades) and my process is much more efficient than the normal course. By the time I'm comfortable with exploring more of it, I'll do it the normal way. Dying at level 2 the 74th time in a row gets old (normally by starvation).

Btw, the only reason I included that 'cheat' is to show the parent's author just how unique each instance of the game really is.

One last thing: you could also say that all games that allow saved games allow cheating too. It's not like I'm always changing the date to full moon nights (and no, I don't do that).

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)

Commercial games vs. Nethack vs. SLASH'EM

[flamearrows]

When people ask about the difficulty of nethack and SLASH'EM, they are usually told the following (on rgrn). Commercial games want you to win. Nethack doesn't care either way. SLASH'EM wants you DEAD.

Three Words

[Icephreak1]

Best. Game. Ever.

- IP

Happy Birthday Nethack

[djdavetrouble]

Nethack also worked on SO MANY platforms, I heard about it on a bbs, and was able to download a copy for my atari ST. I also had a shell account at work that I compiled it on (we had vt 100 terminals on our desk back then). I looked on the downloads page, and there are unofficial versions for things like a psion and zaurus, and official versions for dos, all windows releases, atari, amiga, os/2, mac, windows ce, and linux. People will port it to any platform. Back then it was the best dungeon game you could play, and once you are hooked on it there is no turning back. I had never played a game that seemed so simple (kill bad things, get treasure, escape) that could become so complex. My nethack buddy always compared it to chess, in that you have to try to think ahead always. Do you really want to drink that unidentified potion in the gnomish mines and risk hallucination ? etc etc..

Nethack players are used to the rest of the world 'not getting it', but we love showing the door to newbies, knowing that there is a certain kind of nerd that lives for things like this.

Funny story, one of the network administrators was at my desktop helping me with something, and I had to explain the Nethack icon on my desktop to her... I saw she was looking at it very nervously....muahahahahaha