NetHack

Moby ID: 820
DOS Specs

Description official description

NetHack is a roguelike role-playing game with both traditional ASCII graphics and a graphical tileset. The objective is to find the Amulet of Yendor and sacrifice it to your deity.

In the beginning, you choose one of the classes - there are some traditional ones, like Priest or Knight, but also unusual ones like Tourist or Caveman. Then, you find yourself on the 1st level of the dungeon, along with your pet that will accompany you and help you in combat. On each level, you have to find an exit to the lower level; on the way, you'll find countless monsters to fight, as well as items to collect. Sometimes, you come upon a shop, where you can buy or sell items.

Items you find can be blessed (more effective than normal), but sometimes are cursed (less effective, or outright harmful). Eating the corpses of fallen enemies is an important part of the game since many creatures give you special abilities or immunities when eaten.

While the above description might seem brief, NetHack is, in fact, a very complex and merciless game - there are lots of ways to die.

Since NetHack is a roguelike, everything is represented as a top-down view of the current dungeon level, where the walls, the floor, and all items, characters, and monsters are ASCII characters. More recent versions of the game also include an official set of graphical tiles which can be turned on at the player's option.

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

128 People (126 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook for NetHack 3.3) by
Guide extensively edited and expanded for 3.0 by
Large portions of the Guide shamelessly cribbed from "A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom" by
Small portions of the Guide adapted from "Further Exploration of the Dungeons of Doom" by
Original Hack written by
Assistance on original Hack from
Hack re-write (v1.0.1 - 1.0.3) by
Early Hack port revisions merged in NetHack 1.4 by
NetHack 3.0c rewrite coordinated by
NetHack 3.0c rewrite team
NetHack 3.0c rewrite team joined by
NetHack 3.1 revision lead
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 89% (based on 2 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 109 ratings with 9 reviews)

Better than 95 % of commercial games and still free!

The Good
One word - Depth! I mean the game is HUGE. You never know everything about this game. There are countless files including information about every aspect of the game and the files are huge and full of information. The game includes many small jokes we and my friends laugh at still. The Quantum Mechanic is still one of the best monsters in any game! For all poor students this game has one incredible plus side - it's free! The source (in C) is also available if you're interested in programming.

The Bad
It took a long time to get into the game. At first I just couldn't play it. The graphics looked too poor. Well I remember the old wisom, "Graphics don't count, as long as the gameplay is good" and started playing.

I found one bug (I have played the game for maybe 4 years) and reported it. Now their homepage lists the bug as "fixed for next version". So bugs are NOT a big problem!

The Bottom Line
Download this game. There are no bad points to doing it. (Except that you may loose all your friends and family...)

DOS · by Heikki Sairanen (75) · 2001

Sokoban dungeons - you have got to be kidding? (Fortunately not!)

The Good
This game has it all - including the proverbial kitchen sink.

The Bad
It's very very VERY difficult. Like, V-E-R-Y. Just when you think you're going to make it, you get stuck on some devious sub-levels, or choke on your food, or find a treasure zoo (more like a Pet Cemetary, usually), or... Hey, why did I write this under the "What didn't you like"-heading - the unpredictability keeps you humble.

Then again, you might complete the game in ten minutes. It's just a matter of not dying, really...

Uh, what was it that I was supposed to write about again... oh, yeah, here goes: you find loads more interesting stuff than you can ever hope to carry (most of them are cursed, anyway), the plot isn't too good (so you might as well have no plot at all), there aren't any interesting NPCs (or I haven't found them yet), and the mouse control (sic) is pretty useless (though I guess that's pretty much a truism).

The Bottom Line
Remember what I said about "NetHack" having it all? Well, it weren't no lie. NetHack has more depth and lastability than any other game I've seen. Because it "only" has character graphics and no sound at all, and because it is not a commercial venture, the developers have managed to fit so much little (and big) features in the game that you really don't pay much attention to the fact that the point of the game is just to kill a lot of baddies and explore one-screen dungeon levels until you can beat the big baddie. Well, actually, there is a lot more to the game than that, but you'll just have to find out for yourself, won't you?

In short, NetHack is to Rogue or even Hack what Dom Perignon is to Champale. (Haven't tried either one myself, but I've seen ads...)

Windows · by Late (77) · 2001

The Last Game You'll Ever Play

The Good
It is comprehensive: it has great scads of races, of items, of dungeons (quest levels, a Sokoban game, the Gnomish Mines &c.); even the kitchen sink. It never gets old: just when one thought one knew it all, some new thing leaps out. After NetHack, every other game pales and is boring.

The Bad
It is hard, probably the hardest game I've ever played. It'll keep drawing you in and killing you off. Just as NetHack has more items, monsters and types of levels than other games, so too it has more ways to die: being killed outright; starving; choking to death; eating too much food; poisoning; petrification; being crushed by boulders; falling down stairs; donning an amulet of strangulation; and so on and so forth. It is a tough game.

The Bottom Line
Well worth playing. It's available for nearly every platform, and there's even a GUI (Falcon's Eye, I believe) available. It requires thought and consideration--there's no such thing as an unfair death (or any other negative occurrence) in NetHack: it's always winnable, and always possible to think one's way out.

Linux · by Robert Uhl (2) · 2003

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Why does this exist? Tracy Poff (2094) Jun 21, 2014
NetHack or HackLite? Игги Друге (46654) Apr 30, 2014

Trivia

1001 Video Games

NetHack appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

This project is also the descendant of an older game called Hack. Hack was one of the first "dungeon" type games to use a graphical display instead of text based room descriptions - though it still used ASCII characters to portray your environment.

Easter eggs

Some scroll names in NetHack mean something when read backwards (e.g. "ELBIB YLOH", "DUAM XNAHT"), but "KIRJE" just means "letter" in Finnish.

Gameplay features

  • Players are able to receive Email within the game.
  • NetHack is one of the few computer games where you can actually produce offspring. By polymorphing into a female snake, dragon, or other appropriate monster, you can lay eggs. Just be sure to have fire resistance once your baby dragon starts breathing fire.

References

The owner of the candle shop in the Gnomish Mines town, Izchak, is named after one of the former DevTeam members, Dr. Izchak Miller, who passed away before the release of Nethack 3.2. Information also contributed by Late

Analytics

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 820
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Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Droog.

Windows Mobile, OS/2 added by Trypticon. GP2X Wiz, GP2X added by 666gonzo666. PC-98 added by Infernos. GP32, Acorn 32-bit added by Kabushi. Browser, Android, Macintosh, iPhone, Amiga added by Pseudo_Intellectual. Atari ST added by Игги Друге.

Additional contributors: Adam Baratz, Jeanne, Alaka, Pseudo_Intellectual, General Error, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added February 2, 2000. Last modified February 13, 2024.