

Nethack - Best Game Ever (2000) - lukas
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/01/27/nethack/

======
tom_rath
For those of you who might be looking for something similar in a
strategy/empire-building game, Dwarf Fortress is available for free at:
<http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/>

With a free graphics front-end for the game at:
<http://mayday.w.staszic.waw.pl/df.php>

It's donation-ware, still under development, and the learning curve is a
right-angle, but the game is really fun and addictive.

A wiki has been put together in lieu of proper documentation with this page:
[http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Your_first_fortre...](http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Your_first_fortress)

providing everything you need to start.

If you enjoy the game, please donate. This is a startup which really deserves
to succeed.

~~~
plinkplonk
Dwarf Fortress doesn't seem to work on Linux. Which is strange, since the GUI
is ASCII. It is not open source, so I can't jump in and fix this either. All
that said, it looks like a cool game.

~~~
swolchok
I believe it runs under WINE.

~~~
mjgoins
Yes, it runs under wine, but in my experience you have to turn off sound.

~~~
tom_rath
That makes it easy: There is no in-game sound.

If you would like the DF music to play in the background, just fire up the
game's mp3 (under /data/sound) on your player and you're off.

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witten
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is arguably a better game than Nethack in almost
every way, and it's actively developed. Crawl is better balanced, meaning that
when you die it's often due to your own misstep, rather than arbitrary luck.
The UI takes care of a lot of the grunt-work of crawling through the dungeon,
so you can spend more time on the aspects of the game that are actually fun.
And it's got more to do than Nethack does, featuring a variety of branches and
interesting areas rather than the monotony of the same kinds of levels over
and over.

Before Crawl, I never thought I could feel absolute terror while playing a
roguelike. You'll see what I mean the first time you're frantically trying to
find a portal out of the Abyss with a veritable armada of demons closing in on
you.

More info: <http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/>

The one thing that Nethack does "better" is that it's got dozens and dozens of
ways to die. In Crawl, when you die, it's usually due to hit point loss.

~~~
mjgoins
While I will take your word that crawl gets good later in the game, I've
always found it to be really monotonous to start, so I never got into it, and
have never played it long enough to see past the first level or two.

Nethack was intriguing and really funny right from the start, so I got really
into playing it, and the sense of humor is really important to me.

I will have to give crawl another serious look, because at first it seems
really mechanical. Pretty much like Diablo, but on the console.

~~~
witten
Nethack definitely has more going for it in the comedy department. I like good
game humor as well, but balance and interesting gameplay are even more
important to me. I would encourage you to give Crawl another try, if only so
that you can appreciate the quantum mechanics in Nethack that much more.

~~~
eru
If you want an actively developed Nethack, you might try the fork Sporkhack:
<http://sporkhack.nineball.org/>

To play, simply telnet to sporkhack.com

The author of Sporkhack tries to make the game more balanced, but without
increasing the difficulty for beginners.

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marc28443
"Say a hacker who's suddenly become wealthy from a Linux-related IPO
approaches you and says, 'Here's a million dollars. Let's make a full-blown,
graphics-rich version of Nethack to rival Diablo. Interested?'"

That would really kick ass. Anyone having a spare million dolars?

~~~
anigbrowl
There are graphic clients available, in various stages of maintenance (see the
Wiki article on NH). But I keep going back to the text version. It's like
porting Pacman to the Quake or other 3d engine - you don't really gain
anything, and arguably the visual distractions get in the way, over-
emphasizing the limitations of the square grid and limited view. Additionally,
the isometric 3d of some ports makes it too easy to step into the wrong
square.

When I was in High School (80s) I used to sneak onto the campus of the local
technical college to play Hack.

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Raphomet
So classic. A few years ago I told my dad what I was playing and he told me he
had played Hack (from which NetHack is derived) on his first PC.

Roguelikes have aged better than any other games I can think of.

~~~
ca98am79
I had Hack - my dad bought it for me from a mail order catalog in the 1980's
and they sent us a 5¼-inch floppy. I remember printing out the manual on my
dot matrix printer. I don't think I have ever loved a computer game like I did
this one.

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bayareaguy
If you like this sort of thing there is also Angband -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angband_(computer_game)>

~~~
DLWormwood
I actually tended to prefer the "straight-forward" roguelikes, like Moria and
Angband. Nethack struck me as requiring participation in some esoteric cult-
like sub-culture to really appreciate the game. Whereas the original Rogue and
descendants were more pure games, that focused on strategy and risk
management, rather than exploiting a never ending stream of "gimmicks."

Ultimately, I stopped playing these and started playing the commercial fare
like Diablo. It wasn't the graphics, though. It was the simple fact that the
commerical games were designed to be _beaten._ It used to be a matter of
course for the developers of the roguelikes to constantly patch or change the
games to make it harder and harder to win. I, quite frankly, got tired of
playing games that only provided one primary goal (beating the Balrog/Morgoth;
getting the Amulet) and pulling the goal away from me faster than I could
adapt. Even the modern MMORPGs (like WoW, which is my current addiction)
provide intermediary goals that make the time investment feel more productive.

~~~
Retric
WoW is a great example of the concept that people enjoy new goals, but hate it
when their old goals become harder.

Which is why sucessful games tend to add hard content that becomes easer over
time just as new goals are added to the game.

------
eddiegroves
Perfect companion for the Nintendo DS:
<http://frodo.dyn.gno.org/~brettk/NetHackDS>

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winthrowe
My favorite roguelike has to be Troubles of Middle Earth <http://t-o-m-e.net/>
There's nothing like a treasured gameplay style mixed with a treasured
backstory.

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mkramlich
Dead By Zombie is a Rogue-like set in a zombie apocalypse world. And with mad
scientists. Survival horror aspect. A little comedy. And written in Python.
Without ever looking at any Rogue-like source. The demo is free at:
<http://deadbyzombie.com>

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adsyoung
Rogue is on the iPhone. Nethack and Dwarf Fortress would be amazing. Does
anyone have any inside info?

~~~
duskwuff
Nethack is probably doable. Dwarf Fortress isn't open-source, and would
probably bog down badly on the iPhone without significant modifications.

~~~
eru
Yes, Nethack should be doable. It already runs on some smartphones [1]. The
most pressing problem seems to be the limited methods of input. Nethack bears
many similarities to Vi in the user interface, and I need a full keyboard to
enjoy it.

[1] <http://www.nethack.org/v343/ports/download-wince.html>

------
ondra
ADoM is also good, but closed source unfortunately. Can't play it on my PDA.

~~~
artificer
Yes, this is an amazing roguelike. My favorite one. Too bad it's sequel (Jade)
is still vaporware...

