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)

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

Go ahead. Fight my semi colon.

The Good
What's likable about this game? Well, you have to go back waaaaay back in time to understand. Back in the time of green CRTs. That's right, the yellowish beige monitors connected by a serial cable to a Unix server in universities back in the early eighties. I'm no historian, but from what I can recollect is that back then, people relied on a few Unix games, notably one named "adventure", but these were text-based adventure games. Rogue came in with a more complete full-screen interface, then came hack, then came nethack.

What is likeable about nethack? Well it's an easy way to get back to that period, with a game that has been ported to many platforms and is still developed. The game is complex if you like high learning curves.

This is a handy game if you want to impress your friends by showing that an obscure operating system such as DG/UX or Tru64 can actually run a game instead of a business application, although Nethack is not what I could call a modern game.

I haven't played it enough to qualify it as a classic. I compiled it in my box and tried it out of curiosity. But it has a big following which makes me believe that there is more than meets the eye. Time will tell.

The Bad
Absolutely horrible and hard to master interface, but having been introduced to Unix systems in the nineties under the X Window influence, it's probably just me.

The Bottom Line
Nethack (and its ancestor, Rogue) has been best described by a Unix admin friend of mine many years ago as "The game were you fight with a semi colon".

So if you enjoy fighting semi colons, this game is for you.

Linux · by Olivier Masse (443) · 2003

The best game i've played and im new school.

The Good
Its easy with its own complexity, fun and relaxing yet gets the heart pumping. The outcome of the game is the same but the gameplay is usually unpredictable due to the randomisation of the placement of items and monsters.

The Bad
The game only contains ONE objective: to get the gem. The animal that follows gets in your way. The animal the follows you steals the good things such as goblin or hobbit corpses.

The Bottom Line
Nethack is simplised solo game not to much unlike World of Warcraft. You stroll around a dungeon, getting stronger as you kill more monsters and are faced with even stronger monsters. HOWEVER the game has an objective; unlike World of Warcraft, to collect the Gem of some wizard and return it. The objective is simple but the journey is not.

The downside is there is only that one objective

DOS · by silver shaedow (1) · 2005

[ 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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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Droog.

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