Nethack

[Brad]

So I've started playing the game Nethack. I wanted to try out the famous text RPG. The learning curve on this game is STEEP. There are tons of possible things you can do in this game and hundreds of ways to die. And death is permanent. Your character dies, he/she is gone forever. My latest character was a level 7 Valkyrie named Sheera. After drinking out of a fountain, I found some sort of a water spirit which gave me the sword Excalibur. I smited all my enemies for the next level, but then I died from eating rotten food and getting food poisoning. Another time I put on an amulet without identifying it first and it turned out to be an amulet of strangulation which strangled my character to death.

There are two ways to play the game. The traditional text screen mode and the windows tile mode. I've been playing with the tile mode, because the learning curve is step enough already with out having to memorize what all of the letters and symbols represent.

[Nick]

A word about exiting the program...

If you exit without saving it will delete your character (even if your not dead.) Very annoying as I was just trying out a different tile set and wanted to quit quickly. Poor Bob, the solemn monk. Dead before his time. His kitten, trapped forever to roam the dungeons. Growing feral and malnourished.   R.I.P.

[Nick]

Nethack for the iPhone! iNetHack!
Its not bad. Six tile sets to choose from and common commands are stuck is an easy to reach place along the bottom of the screen. You can rotate the screen (for different aspect ratios) and zoom! Its not bad at all.  Plus its free!






(There are two nethack ports for the iphone/ipod touch. iNetHack is the better one)

[Brad]

That makes me actually want to get an iPhone....

I wonder if they've got a port that'll work on an Android phone yet?

[Brad]

I stumbled across something pretty crazy while playing tonight. I opened a door into a large throne room COMPLETELY filled with monsters. I used my wand of fire to burn the name "Elbereth" into the doorway which kept the monsters from crossing the threshold and eating me. I zapped a whole bunch of them until my wand ran out of charges. I had killed about half the monsters when a stupid yellow light thingy came up from behind me and exploded which blinded me. Then I stumbled around and got eaten by and invisible monster.

Engraving "Elbereth" is highly useful though. If I had done it on the square behind me too I probably would made it out alive no problem, despite the huge number of monsters.

[Nick]

Without a doubt there will be one for android (if there is not already) Or use can just use the android phone to ssh into a server running it

After a quick look there appears to be a semi working port for android (no tiles yet but I could be wrong. I just barely looked to see that it exists at all) and at least one other port in the works.

[zourtney]

...should the fact that I have no idea what you're talking about lower my self-esteem or raise it?

[Nick]

You should find out what we are talking about and decide for your self! Though no game is of enough importance that it should be allowed to lower your esteem.

Nethack is just a rather (as is almost as old as me) turn based, dungeon RPG. Its incredibly detailed in how things interact, and in what you can do. (like putting a towel over your eyes to use your telepathy. Or eating a nymph to contract teleportitis.) 

It's just like.. deep, man.