NetHack
A released djinni grants the player a wish.
Developed by	The NetHack DevTeam
Latest release	3. A software developer is a person or organization concerned with facets of the software development process wider than design and coding a somewhat broader scope of A software release is the distribution whether public or private of an initial or new and upgraded version of a Computer software product 4. 3 / December 8 2003
OS	Cross-platform
Genre	Roguelike
License	NetHack General Public License
Website	www.nethack.org

NetHack is a single-player roguelike computer game originally released in 1987. Events 1609 - Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room the second public library of Europe. Events February 27 &mdash Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Yu Suzuki An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination In computing cross-platform (also known as multi-platform) is a term used to refer to Computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function type or field of use A roguelike is a member of the role-playing video game genre that borrows its name and gameplay elements from the 1980 computer game A software license (or software licence in commonwealth usage is a Legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of copyright protected software The NetHack General Public License is a Copyleft Software license primarily used by the Roguelike game A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages A roguelike is a member of the role-playing video game genre that borrows its name and gameplay elements from the 1980 computer game A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Events Notable releases Capcom releases the Street Fighter arcade game the first in a long series of games It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack (1985), which is a descendant of Rogue (1980). Not to be confused with the.hack video game and anime franchise Rogue popularized the Dungeon crawling computer game dating back from 1980. The "net" element references that its development has been coordinated through the Internet. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks ^[1] The "hack" element refers to a genre of role-playing games known as hack and slash for their focus on combat. A role-playing game ( RPG; often roleplaying game) is a Game in which the participants assume the roles of Fictional characters. Hack and slash or hack and slay can refer to either a subgenre of Action game, or a type of Gameplay. The player takes the part of a dungeon-delving character in search of the Amulet of Yendor. An amulet ( the Elder|Pliny]] meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble" a close cousin of the talisman (from Arabic

History and development

NetHack is open source and one of the oldest computer games still being actively developed, with new features and bug fixes added by a loose but secretive group of volunteers, commonly called the DevTeam. Open source is a development methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge The DevTeam does not publicly discuss versions in progress, and they release new versions without notice. Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique version names or unique version numbers to unique states of Computer software. However, they do maintain a list of known bugs. Often, others will release unofficial patches between versions.

Gameplay

Before playing a game, the player is asked to name his or her character and then select a race, role, gender, and alignment, or allow the game to assign them. There are many elements that show up throughout the fantasy genre in different guises This article is about a concept in role-playing games For character classes specific to Dungeons and Dragons see Character class (Dungeons & Dragons. Gender comprises a range of differences between men and women extending from the biological to the social In some Role-playing games alignment is a categorisation of the moral and ethical perspective of the Player characters Non-player characters There are traditional fantasy roles such as knight, wizard, rogue, valkyrie, and samurai, but there are also unusual ones, including archeologist, tourist, and caveman. Knight is the English term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. The Wizard is a magical Character class in many Role-playing games and Computer role-playing games Wizards wield powerful magic spells but In the Dungeons & Dragons Role-playing game, rogue or thief is one of the base character classes. In Norse mythology the valkyries ( Old Norse Valkyrja "Choosers of the Slain" are Dísir, minor female deities is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial Japan. Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos Tourism is Travel for Recreational or Leisure purposes The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel A caveman is a popular Stock character based upon Stereotyped concepts of the way in which early prehistoric Humans or Homininans may have looked and The player character's role and alignment dictate which deity the character serves in the game. A player character or playable character (PC is a Fictional character in a Video game or Role playing game who is controlled or controllable See also List of deities A deity is a Postulated Preternatural or Supernatural Being, who is always

After the player character is created, the main objective is introduced. To win the game, the player must retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, found at the lowest level of the dungeon, and sacrifice it to his or her deity. Successful completion of this task rewards the player with the gift of immortality, and the player is said to "ascend", attaining the status of demigod. Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in physical or spiritual form for an Infinite length of Time. The term " demigod " meaning "half-god" is used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human In addition, a number of sub-quests must be completed, including one class-specific quest.

The player's character is usually accompanied by a pet animal, typically a kitten or little dog, although knights begin with a saddled pony. Kittens ( Old English Diminutive of Cat) are juvenile domesticated cats ( Felis catus) that are not fully-grown The dog ( Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated Subspecies of the gray wolf, a Mammal of the Canidae family of the order A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider or other load fastened to an animal's back by a girth. A pony is a small Horse with a specific conformation and temperament Most of the other monsters may also be tamed using magic.

Dungeon levels

NetHack's dungeon spans over 45-50 levels, of which most are randomly generated when the player character first encounters them. A typical level contains a way "up" and a way "down" (these may be stairways, ladders, trapdoors etc. ) Some "special" levels are of fixed design in every game.

Items and tools

A player's inventory, as displayed after application of the "menucolors" patch.

NetHack features a variety of items: weapons (either ranged or melee), armor to protect the player; scrolls and spellbooks to cast; potions to quaff; and an assortment of tools such as keys and lamps. A weapon is a Tool used either in Hunting, or attack or defence in Combat for the purpose of subduing enemy personnel or to destroy enemy weapons Melee (from the French mêlée meˈleː generally refers to disorganized Close combat involving a group of fighters Armour (or armor) is protective covering most commonly manufactured from metals to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact A scroll is a roll of Papyrus, Parchment, or Paper which has been written drawn or painted upon for the purpose of transmitting information or using as A broader definition of a tool is an entity used to interface between two or more domains that facilitates more effective action of one domain upon the other Although the majority of items are beneficial to the player, the specific use of each item is unknown until the player identifies it.

Blessings and curses

As in many other roguelike games, all items in NetHack are either "blessed", "uncursed", or "cursed". A curse (also called execration) is any manner of Adversity thought to be inflicted by any supernatural power (such as a spell, a Prayer, an The majority of items are found uncursed, but the "BUC" (Blessed/Uncursed/Cursed) status of an item is unknown until it is identified or detected through other means.

Generally, a blessed item will be more powerful than an uncursed item, and a cursed item will be less powerful. When talking about scrolls and objects which bestow effects upon the character, a curse will generally make the effect (more) harmful. There are exceptions, however, which are usually very specific (e. g. the cursed scroll of gold detection will reveal traps if read while confused).

Character death

Like roguelikes in general, NetHack features permadeath: expired characters cannot be revived without having made backup copies of the actual save files. In Computer role-playing games (CRPGs permanent death (sometimes permadeath or PD) is a situation in which Player characters (PCs die permanently Players sometimes use the acronyms "YAAD" and "YASD" when discussing their characters' deaths, meaning "Yet Another Annoying Death" or "Yet Another Stupid Death". An "annoying" death is typically one that was the fault of misfortune more than the player (such as falling into a spiked, poisoned pit trap early in the game); a "stupid" death is when player's actions were directly responsible for their own death.

An ascending player is asked whether she wants her possessions identified.

The prompt "Do you want your possessions identified?" (abbreviated as "DYWYPI" and used to suggest character death) is given by default at the end of any game, allowing the player to learn any unknown properties of the items found during the game.

Sporadically, the game saves the level on which a character has died, and then integrates that level into a later dungeon, complete with the ex-player's possessions, ghost, and killer(s). This is done via "bones files", which are saved on the computer hosting the game. A player using a publicly-hosted copy of the game can thus encounter the remains of many other players. Players can also swap bones files via programs like Hearse. ^[2]

Bugs, humorous messages, stories, experiences, and ideas for the next version are discussed on the Usenet newsgroup rec. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system A newsgroup is a Repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from many users in different locations games. roguelike. nethack. ^[3]

Conducts

Although NetHack can be completed by new or intermediate players without any limitations, experienced players often attempt "conducts", which are completely voluntary restrictions as to what one can do. Conducts usually involve a player not being able to do something, such as wish for items or wear armor. Some conducts are tracked by the game, and listed when the character dies or ascends. Some, however, like the Zen conduct where players wear a blindfold throughout the whole game, are not.

Interface

NetHack for Microsoft Windows in "tiles mode".

Vulture's Eye offers an isometric perspective.

NetHack was originally created without a graphical user interface, although the option to play using one was added later in its development. Interface elements — environment, entities, and objects — are represented by arrangements of ASCII or Extended ASCII glyphs used in plain text, "DECgraphics" or "IBMgraphics" mode. American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) The term extended ASCII (or high ASCII) describes Eight-bit or larger Character encodings that include the standard seven- Bit In addition to the environment, the interface also displays character and situational information.

Apart from the original termcap interface, there are interfaces that replace standard screen representations with two-dimensional images, or tiles, collectively known as "tiles mode". Termcap (terminal capability is a software library and Database used on Unix-like computers 2D computer graphics is the Computer -based generation of Digital images mdashmostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models text and digital A tile-based game is a Game that uses Tiles as one of the fundamental elements of play Graphic interfaces of this kind utilize the X Window System, the similar Microsoft Windows GUI, the Qt toolkit, or the GNOME libraries. Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Qt (pronounced "cute" by its creators is a Cross-platform application development framework widely used for the development of GUI programs (in which A gnome is a Mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle

Enhanced graphical options also exist, such as the isometric perspective of Falcon's Eye and Vulture's Eye, or the three-dimensional rendering noegnud offers. Isometric projection is a form of Graphical projection —more specifically an Axonometric projection. Vulture's refers to two graphical versions of popular Roguelike Computer games: Vulture's Eye, a graphical 3D computer graphics (in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer noegnud ("dungeon" in reverse is a Graphical user interface using SDL for NetHack and Slash'EM

Ports and variants

Unofficial ports exist for the Nintendo DS,^[4][5] PlayStation Portable,^[6] Tapwave Zodiac,^[7] GP2X^[8], Windows Mobile,^[9], Nokia N800^[10], and Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. See also Software portability In Computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created The is a dual-screen Handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. The PlayStation Portable (officially abbreviated PSP) is a Handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Tapwave, founded in Mountain View California in May 2001 introduced the Zodiac mobile entertainment The GP2X is an open-source Linux -based handheld Video game console and media player created by GamePark Holdings Windows Mobile is a compact Operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for Mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the Las Vegas CES 2007 Summit Apple Inc, ( formerly Apple Computer Inc, is an American Multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing Consumer electronics The iPhone is an internet-connected Multimedia Smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc The iPod Touch (trademarked and marketed as the iPod touch and sometimes colloquially referred to as the iTouch) is a Portable media player and

Slash'EM and SporkHack are actively developed variants. Slash'EM ( Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack - Extended Magic) is a variant of the Roguelike game NetHack that offers extra Branching, in Revision control and Software configuration management, is the duplication of an object under revision control (such as a source code file or a

See also

• Mythology and fiction in NetHack

References

External links

• NetHack Official Site
  • A Guide to the Mazes of Menace (Guidebook for NetHack) by Eric S. Raymond
• NetHack at the Open Directory Project
• NetHack at MobyGames
• Hall of Fame - NetHack at GameSpy
• "The Best Game Ever" at Salon.com
• Public NetHack server
• [1] Older archive of NetHack Binaries for MS-DOS, Ported by Don Kneller. Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4 1957 often referred to as ESR, is a Computer programmer, author and Open source software advocate The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directory MobyGames is a Website devoted to cataloging computer and video games, both past and present GameSpy, also known as GameSpy Industries, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related Saloncom, part of Salon Media Group ( often just called Salon, is an online

Wikis

• Wikia has a wiki on this subject: Wikihack, the NetHack wiki
• NetHack guide at StrategyWiki