NetHack

Nethack is a wonderfully silly, yet quite addictive Dungeons and Dragons-style adventure game. The “net” element references that its development has been coordinated through the Internet. The “hack” element refers to a genre of role-playing games known as hack and slash for their focus on combat.

In NetHack you play the part of a fierce fighter, wizard, or any of many other classes, fighting your way down to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (try saying THAT one backwards!) for your god. On the way, you might encounter a quantum mechanic or two, or perhaps a microscopic space fleet, or — if you’re REALLY lucky — the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons-inspired games, the emphasis in NetHack is on discovering the detail of the dungeon and not simply killing everything in sight – in fact, killing everything in sight is a good way to die quickly.

Features include:

• 45-50 levels, most of which are randomly generated
• Variety of items: weapons, armour, scrolls, potions, rings, gems, and an assortment of tools such as keys and lamps
• Blessings and curses
• Permadeath: expired characters cannot be revived without having made backup copies of the actual save files
• Interfaces:
• Console
• Graphical, using X, Qt toolkit or GNOME libraries

Website: www.nethack.org
Support:
Developer: The NetHack DevTeam
License: NetHack General Public License

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