Nethack - (Classic Dungeon-Crawler Roguelike) 

Probably one of the greatest games ever made. Unbelieveable detail.

Oh man, I am pleased that Nook knows how important and great NetHack is (THE roguelike), but a bit disappointed on how little it knows. There are A LOT of little hints. Whenever the game tells you obscure things like "you hear water falling on coins" or other stuff like that, there are reasons for that! What's also nice is that every game the type of wands, rings, potions, scrolls and so on is randomized, so a blue potion in a game can be healing, in the next game it can be blindness. There are ways to find out what they are without drinking/reading/using them, but I won't spoil the reader. The weapons and armor are the same though, so you can have reliable things too, not EVERYTHING is random. NetHack also has suprisingly (at times) high versatility. There is absolutely no limits in what you are allowed to do. And you can do some very clever stuff at times. Especially neat when you realize the full power of everything you have and find. You can do more than just dig a tunnel with a pick axe. You can do more than drink water from a fountain. You can do more than just offer and pray at an altar. To give an example and a mini spoiler: dropping items on the altar (aka just dropping them when you're on an altar square) will make the altar glow red if the item is cursed. It will glow amber if the item is blessed. And there will be no glow if the item is normal (uncursed). That's a very nice foolproof way to identify items before putting them on or using them. Of course, this works if you're not blinded. If you're blind, you cannot see the glow and cannot identify an item like that. NetHack has many many such corner cases (some much more complicated and niche than this one) that are actually taken care of and a treat to see/experience/realize. And like that thing that Nook experienced, that you cannot kick while levitating, since you can't push yourself against the other leg that's firmly seated on the ground. But, you can take the pick axe and chop the door open. NetHack is also known for being very difficult. Mostly because of RNG. It's capital R random. It can vary gigantically. One game you can be totally reckless and careless and get very far (maybe even win the game, but I've never had that luck). And the next game you can be calculated, meticulous, careful and overall play much better and still die early because the game put you in a (nearly) impossible situation. The most famous "impossible" scenario is going to the mines and meeting a gnome shaman with a wand of death. If I'm not mistaken, that can happen as early as dungeon level 3. If you're hit by a ray (beam?) of death you either have magic resistance or you die. Doesn't matter your HP, doesn't matter your level, doesn't matter anything, just to have magic resistance. Or reflection. Or to be undead. Ok, multiple ways to "dodge" it. As most things in NetHack. Last time I was seriously involved in this, I think it was 2012, the best NetHack players in the world were still debating if NetHack is a solved game. Because, no matter how difficult or impossible the situation is, you can learn to prepare to deal with it. At that time, the best players in the world were getting 11 out of 12 consecutive games won pretty consistently. So close, but not right there. The meta progression in the game is purely from you learning things about the game. Being well cultured helps a lot, since there's a lot of inspirations from all kind of things, from greek mythology to hollywood movies. Playing the game unspoiled (aka not searching online what things do and how to do x,y,z) and learning how to deal with all the stuff is both extremely challenging (well, from easy to very challenging, not everything is difficult) and very VERY rewarding. I think that's why NetHack has stayed so relevant despite getting close to being 40 years old. It's on a very very narrow list of games that truly fully respect your intelligence. You can really develop your pattern recognition, planning and tactical skill in this game, if you take it seriously.

Any game with classes "Tourist" and "Valkyrie" next to each other has got to be good.

@Nook Well done for surviving (slightly) longer than Dudley! :) Drop things on any altar to detect whether they're cursed BTW, if you don't have a convenient pet to walk on or avoid them. BTW you can't pat ('pet') your pet, but you can throw them food as treats (this will train them in certain circumstances) #? to show the list of all #commands I'm glad you finally came back to this game: it has so many jokes & interactions it's surprisingly complex & entertaining for such a simple concept :)

Nethack is really a game to return to, over and over again, year after year :)

Pathos is also a fantastic version of Nethack as well. On damn near everything in terms of being able to play on.

Between Rogue and Nethack, there was HACK, which had fewer classes--they had yet to add Tourists and Priests, as I recall. Spellbooks came with improvements to Nethack, and there was a point to keeping the spellbooks in case something caused you to forget them.

Why don't you use the help menu to check the commands ? AAAAARRRGH The elf-trained dog was pretty badass.

AD&D is 1st edition. There is an AD&D 2nd edition as well, but it's a bit different from 1e. Arguably 1e was the last edition of D&D as every edition released after that stepped away from the core ethos of D&D.

I am such a stinky nerd when it comes to this game. Nethack...A game for nerds so nerdy they don't have any friends to play Dungeons and Dragons with so they have the computer play with them lol

Used to play falcons eye all the time as a kid.

Dark Souls of the ‘90 😆 one of the best games ever played. Never finished it though.

This is the game that the term "roguelike" was invented to describe.

feed your dog!

Still not sure which is more complex. Adon or Nethack.

I think Larn (or Laarn) is older then NetHack

Ok fine, I'll re download it. Sigh.

There's a vulkan(?) Version on steam, not sure if there's anything about it that's different other than graphics

It was NOT based on ADD; it was based on Rogue, seasoned by ADD.

Dont wanna download from steam, its not official

Wow, I wouldn’t play this game even if I was locked in prison for life with a Windows 95 computer