
NetHack 3.6.6 - paraiuspau
https://www.nethack.org/v366/release.html
======
bhaak
Most of those security bugs have been found by using
[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/) for fuzzing
the config parser of NetHack.

Also read the hilarious account how neglecting the integer range of parsing a
number lead to a config that gives you an almost invincible character from the
start:

[https://dpmendenhall.blogspot.com/2020/03/nethack-366-or-
how...](https://dpmendenhall.blogspot.com/2020/03/nethack-366-or-how-to-
glitch-nethack.html)

~~~
jl6
The great thing about NetHack is that even a +127 cloak of magic resistance
still won’t protect you from cockatrice stoning, disease from major demons,
choking on food, drowning, nymphs stealing the cloak, poisoning, starvation,
drawbridges, disintegration, brainlessness due to mind flayers, angry gods, or
level drain.

In short, there’s plenty of ways to die in NetHack!

~~~
htfy96
Also, be aware that today happens to be Friday the 13th, which will make your
luck decrease by 1 and increases the difficulty a little bit ;p

------
picozeta
It's famous in the roguelike world but I dislike that it is practically pretty
much impossible to win without spoilers [0] (which means you have to read
about it in wikis and co. to find a strategy that works).

[0 I know there are _some_ people who managed to ascend (win) without reading
up, but they are probably in the < 0.01% so it's definitely not the norm.

~~~
brmgb
Nethacks like most traditional roguelike is amongst these games I like to call
checklist tickers, which is to say with a moderate amount of luck, if you plod
through the required amount of trivia and perfectly follow the winning moves
checklist you should succeed. It kind of ruins the fun for me - playing feels
more like a chore than an actual game - but it seems really enjoyable to some.

~~~
catach
I would submit that those who enjoy the genre most are probably those who
largely attempt to uncover the "winning moves checklist" for themselves.

~~~
danudey
I enjoy games like this (and also other genres, like city sims or turn-based
strategy games) because I enjoy seeing what happens. It's a process of
discovery and interaction.

In the case of NetHack, though, it's mostly about how much hilarious stupid
stuff happens, like the time I started a dungeon, took my first step, and my
kitten triggered a boulder trap and killed my instantly. Thanks, kitten.

------
tmountain
I've been playing--and sucking at--roguelikes for years, and I wanted to chime
in to suggest "Caves of Qud" for anyone that likes this genre. It's a modern
roguelike that's still in active development with a really imaginative
universe: "The game features a mix between a post-apocalyptic and a fantasy
setting, and is heavily inspired by the pen-and-paper role-playing game Gamma
World and Dungeons & Dragons."

~~~
kup0
Agree! Caves of Qud is quite fun. It can be difficult, so I often turn off
permadeath just so I can wander around and enjoy the crazy worlds it has to
offer on each run

Very neat what it has done with ASCII-style interface too

~~~
d4mi3n
I'd also recommend Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead for a good post-
apocalyptic/zombie themed rougelike.

[https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-
DDA/](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/)

------
classified
I am still a hardcore fan of Angband:

[https://rephial.org/](https://rephial.org/)

Different types of information (inventory, map, monster info, etc) can all be
put in separate windows, so my screen is plastered with Angband windows when I
play. Makes for great immersion, and the windows all retain their position and
size between program starts.

It may even be older than Nethack.

~~~
sethish
Angband is 1990, Nethack is 1987

~~~
grandchild
If you dig into the version history of Angband[0] you will find that it was
derived from the Moria[1] code, which was released in 1983. So depending on
what your concept of "origin" is it might or might not be older.

[0]
[http://www.thangorodrim.net/history/version.txt](http://www.thangorodrim.net/history/version.txt)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moria_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moria_\(video_game\))

~~~
naniwaduni
Nethack, in turn, descends from Hack, released in 1982, but first published to
Usenet in 1984. Hack and Moria are likely simultaneous.

~~~
OskarS
I mean, if we're going to play this game, they're all roguelikes and thus
they're all descended from Rogue. Which, in turn, descends from Colossal Cave
Adventure and Dungeons & Dragons, which is descended from traditional war-
gaming, and if we continue down far enough we're back at the Royal Game of Ur.

~~~
bhaak
It's more than that. Both Angband and NetHack are forks of their ancestors.

There is an unbroken line of continous development of the same code base
coming from the 80s. Hack and Moria OTOH were clones of Rogue and didn't share
any source code with it.

There is still non trivial code from 1984 in NetHack:
[https://i.imgur.com/H4HpjYf.png](https://i.imgur.com/H4HpjYf.png)

With Angband, the case is a bit more complicated as the original Moria was
written in Pascal but it was already converted to C in 1987 and Angband
decends from that code.

~~~
JadeNB
I seriously love this whole discussion. It's "well, actually"ism at its
best—and actually useful.

------
pmoriarty
I love Nethack, and have returned to it time and time again since the 80's.
However, much as I love it, for about 6 years now I've been drawn away to
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup[1], which has in some ways evolved past Nethack.

One of the main draws to DCSS for me has been its autoexplore feature, which
makes exploring the dungeon much less of a chore than it was in Nethack. It
also has much better use of color in text mode (the only mode I play both
games in). Then it has an enormous variety of gods, powers, races, classes,
and spells.

Unfortunately, it does have some downsides compared to Nethack. The
interactions with gods, shops, and pets tends to be richer and more complex in
Nethack. The things you can do to and with items is as well. The trend in DCSS
has been to kind of dumb it down over the years, taking away friction points
that made it more complex and thus (arguably) less fun for a certain kind of
player. My own taste is for more complexity and more options, so I'm not a
huge fan of going in that direction, but I still stick with DCSS because it's
great despite that.

You can play and watch other people play the game by ssh'ing in to
crawl.akrasiac.org, with a username and password of "joshua" (a reference to
the classic 80's hacking movie Wargames).

Another game, in some ways very different but in other ways very much in the
spirit of both of these games that I've really enjoyed has been Path of
Exile.[2] It's not minimalist like Nethack or DCSS, but it definitely has a
lot of roguelike elements and is pretty complicated for a mainstream, modern
game of this sort, and is a worthy successor of both of these games, in my
eyes. It's free to play too, so if you have the slightest interest, give it a
go.

[1] - [https://crawl.develz.org/](https://crawl.develz.org/)

[2] - [https://www.pathofexile.com/](https://www.pathofexile.com/)

~~~
schoen
> The interactions with gods, shops, and pets tends to be richer and more
> complex in Nethack. The things you can do to and with items is as well.

Agreed about all of these except for gods. In NetHack you can't easily choose
your god during the game (though you can sometimes not-easily choose your god
during the game) and the difference in behavior from one god to the next is
minimal. In Crawl, you can usually choose your god and thereby get different
abilities, status effects, and effectively mini-conduct challenges based on
what each god disapproves of. I think that's more interesting than the NetHack
religion stuff, although it's true that NetHack has a slightly more complex
model of gods' feelings toward you.

I've been gradually writing up a document about differences between Crawl and
NetHack and I think the items behavior you mention is a huge one.

NetHack has a substantial minigame about item identification, plus various
ways that items can be damaged, destroyed, or modified (beyond magical
enchantment), plus ways that they can be combined with one another (including
an entire "alchemy" system of mixing potions to get other potions), plus ways
that one item can be turned into another item. Also, some items give status
effects when _carried_ , while others must be equipped, or applied or invoked.
Also, some items have a nonintuitive or humorous use -- one of many examples
is that some harmful potions can be used offensively by throwing them at
monsters or by hitting the monsters with them. Monsters can also often make
intelligent use of items against you.

In Crawl, every item has essentially one and only one appropriate use, and
every item is immediately fully identified when used or equipped. (Item
identification is still not completely trivial because some items are harmful
to use, or are consumed by use, so you might not want to use everything you
find.) Items can never be permanently changed¹ except by enchantment or
curses, and items can't be damaged, nor can they be destroyed except by using
them up or dropping them into deep water or lava. Also, monsters make
comparatively minimal use of items and don't pick them up.

You can see where various people might prefer one style or the other!

¹ The one counterexample I can think of is the dragon-slaying lance that
becomes more powerful every time it kills a dragon.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Agreed about all of these except for gods. In NetHack you can't easily
choose your god during the game (though you can sometimes not-easily choose
your god during the game) and the difference in behavior from one god to the
next is minimal. In Crawl, you can usually choose your god and thereby get
different abilities, status effects, and effectively mini-conduct challenges
based on what each god disapproves of. I think that's more interesting than
the NetHack religion stuff, although it's true that NetHack has a slightly
more complex model of gods' feelings toward you."_

In Nethack you can do a ton of different things at altars. In Crawl altars are
useless except for converting to that god's religion. After your conversion
you can pretty much safely ignore altars in Crawl unless you want to change
your religion. The options are much greater in Nethack.

~~~
schoen
Good point, I wasn't thinking about altars. They absolutely have the character
that you mention.

Conversely, in NetHack you can pretty much ignore _which specific god you
worship_ over the course of the game, which is less true for Crawl.

~~~
antepodius
I don't know, cannibalism for chaotics is pretty good. But so is having
peaceful angels on the astral pland as lawful. Neutrals get shafted, as ever.

------
mysterydip
My first experience with NetHack was in college, when my roommate convinced me
to give it a try. I took about 10 steps in and saw "a rock falls on your head.
you die." After several more failures (who knew eating kobolds was bad for
you?), starvation, and death, I found the most fun in gaming the character
creation system until I got a ring of teleport, going to the nearest shop,
taking everything I could, and escaping without paying :D

------
Tepix
Nethack is great, is there a server where people can watch someone play the
game and have a (audio) chat while watching?

There's so much stuff to learn, I'd love to chat with an experienced players
while they are venturing deeper into the dungeons.

~~~
OskarS
Check it out:

    
    
        ssh nethack@alt.org
    

EDIT: no audio, obviously, but you can send mail to players you're spectating

~~~
csours
OT: Why can't I put ssh://nethack@alt.org in my browser? Why isn't the browser
a ssh client?

I'm sure there's an extension or some such, and I know there are a lot of
admin portals that have ssh accessible from the browser.

edit: for instance here's is one such extension:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell-
app/p...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell-
app/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo)

~~~
somacert
Personally I would like to see s[http://](http://) (http over ssh) as a valid
protocol.

Realistically, I know this would end up being just as bad and broken as every
other web tech.

However due to the superb openssh implementation I tend to view ssh as the
superior transport technology vs tls

~~~
tialaramex
Different audiences mean very different constraints, policy and technology for
success between TLS and SSH.

Most obviously for trust. TOFU is simple and while not fool-proof it's at
least easy to think about the consequences. Using SSH with certificates (which
somebody is bound to mention) is an afterthought and it shows.

There's also a very different default thinking about who is authenticating to
who and why. In TLS the server must authenticate and clients largely do not.
In SSH the server's "authentication" is often limited to just proving
possession of some private key corresponding to a public key, but the client
must provide a username and state up front how they're planning to
authenticate before proceeding.

This is why that FIDO OpenSSH integration results in a file on your laptop (or
whatever client) with local information whereas WebAuthn (FIDO integration for
HTTPS) doesn't do anything like that.

As you'd expect although the underlying primitives aren't dissimilar (Diffie-
Hellman style key agreement, AES encrypt everything, bind identity to
encrypted session using public key signatures) the details are tailored to
their application. TLS isn't a better SSH and SSH isn't a better TLS.

------
kalium_xyz
[https://www.nethack.org/security/CVE-2020-5254.html](https://www.nethack.org/security/CVE-2020-5254.html)
Never considered nethack as part of my security model

~~~
vorpalhex
There were (and probably still are) some shared *nix systems that allowed you
to connect and play/spectate Nethack games.

~~~
htfy96
I often play with ssh nethack@hardfought.org . Multiple variants available.

------
grawprog
Just wanted to say, the nethack and unnethack android ports have probably the
best controls and interface you could have for a roguelike as complex as them.
They're smooth and easy to play, well as far as nethack goes and honestly
probably my preferred way to play them these days.

And as far as mobile games go, can't think of any others that offer so much
depth, gameplay and replayability without iap's and bullshit for free.

Sorry if this sounds like an ad, but I love nethack and getting to carry it
around in my pocket and have it play well is just fucking awesome.

------
crawdingle
How is Nethack like the Grand Prix? Anyone who says they won without a spoiler
is a liar.

------
atemerev
So, if you were wondering what to do the next, say, fourteen days...

------
hypertexthero
See also:

Brogue —
[https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/](https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/)
— colorful, user-friendly rogue-like available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Streets of Rogue — [https://streetsofrogue.com/](https://streetsofrogue.com/)
— with online cooperative play also available for Mac, Windows and Nintendo
Switch.

~~~
crawdingle
Love Streets of Rogue,

[https://crawl.develz.org/](https://crawl.develz.org/) \-- is my personal
favorite. Good combination of punishing but easier to pick up.

~~~
gbmor
DCSS is also my favorite. More polished than others in the early game, but
still absolutely brutal.

------
partomniscient
I'm just impressed they managed to go from 3.6.5 to 3.6.6 during a leap year,
in fact not too far off from Feb 29.

------
haolez
I love NetHack. My only gripe with it is that the AI is dumb most of the times
and the context of some levels is simply bizarre. The Castle, for example, is
just a huge pile of different monsters all trying to kill you just because :)

~~~
ourmandave
Random shark in moat: "Okay, what's my motivation for this scene?"

~~~
haolez
If you haven't played through The Castle yet, you don't know what I mean! It's
like a crowed music concert, but with gnomes and orcs piled up with dragons.

------
glouwbug
The nethack codebase is so old school. Functions are KNR syntax

------
blasdel
[https://www.nethack.org/v366/release.html](https://www.nethack.org/v366/release.html)

------
tuerai
Anyone here ever play IVAN? (Iter Vehemens Ad Necem) It's a pretty fun
roguelike with a unique fluid system.

------
rs23296008n1
I had completely forgotten about this old chestnut. Have they made a
multiplayer version yet?

~~~
floren
I think multiplayer would completely wreck the strategic / thoughtful gameplay
of NetHack. When I'm playing, if I get into a sticky situation I'll frequently
make perhaps one move per minute, because until I _act_ the monsters can't act
either, so I have lots of time to look through my potions and spells and
decide on a plan. How does this translate in multiplayer?

~~~
pfarrell
The nethack faq [0] agrees with you, with the exact reasoning you describe.

0:
[https://www.nethack.org/common/info.html#not](https://www.nethack.org/common/info.html#not)

------
mseidl
This game taxes my graphics card like a mofo

~~~
salawat
Stop trying to train a Neural Net to ascend for you. The gods don't take it
kindly, Plus, the Amulet of Yendor runs a cryptocurrency miner when picked up
by AI's. /s

