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Gaming Top Ten: Nethack
I dread to imagine how many hours I have spent playing Nethack. I've spent a fair amount of time playing other games (and I'm not going to tell you how long, even where I know), but none compares to this game. Now a large part is down to the several years where it was one of only a few games I had access to, but most was simply down to how addictive it is. Here it is:
Looks simple, doesn't it? As you can (hopefully) see, it's a top-down dungeon-crawling RPG, based partly on AD&D, and using ASCII characters to display everything. Interaction with the game is via the keypad and all game responses are via the text that you see at the top. But that is just the tip of the proverbial iceburg, because where Nethack scores is in the sheer complexity of gamplay. There are other factors as well, so lets look at the game in some detail.
It's taken a long time to get here
Nethack is a develoment of a game called Hack, which in turn is a socalled "Rogue-like", no named because it was played in the style of an even older game called Rogue. Nethack was first released in 1987, and Rogue goes right back to 1980. The "Net" part comes from the fact that the dev(elopment) team did not meet physically, but corresponded over the internet. But all that time has meant that every last detail has been looked at, polished, added to, nerfed (of which more later) etc. There are still the odd bug, but given the massive complexity of the gameplay, that's hardly surprising. Some changes have been radical (the change to the end-play between version 3.0 and 3.1 was huge, for example), others have been minor (adding more potions etc).OK, what's going on in that picture then?
The game screen can be divided into three sections. At the bottom are the character stats. The first bit is the character name and level. The description indicates the character level, with names being different for each class. In this case, "Fighter" is a Valkyrie class. There are thirteen classes currently, ranging from the standard Fighter (Barbarian), Mage (Wizard), Thief (Rogue) setup, to things like Ranger, Caveman, Tourist, Monk or Archeologist. Yes, there is a class called "Tourist". They start with a load of food, a camera with a flashgun, and a Hawaiian shirt. That last one is actually very useful once you've got armour to cover it. Until then it affords no protection, but shopkeepers charge you extra. That alone should start to give you an idea of how complex this game gets. After that comes all the stadard AD&D stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intellegence, Wisdom, Charisma and your alignment (lawful, neutral, chaotic), then the level of the dungeon you have got down to (see later), the gold you have, Health Points (as is traditional, dropping to zero equals death), Power (for spell casting), Armour Class, and experience (plus how much you need to reach the next level). The "T" is the number of turns you have played.Covering most of the screen is the map of the level you are on. Most of the higher levels are in the form you see, with caves connected by tunnels, but later levels cam be very different. Much of the lower section is a set of mazes, with every bit either wall or tunnel. Assuing that your character lives long enough to get there, and most don't. The white "@" is the player. It flashed in real life, but obviously you can't see that. Other human characters are also @ symbols, but various colours. For instance, were animals are the same colour as their animal form, but with an @ instead of the usual letter. "d" is a dog. The highlighted d is my pet, Fido (you can name it). Other "d"s include wild dogs, wolves, foxes. A "_" is an altar (see bottom right), a "<" is a stair up and ">" is one downwards. Brown blocks or crosses in doorways are doors in various states. More in symbols later.
Finally, the top line is the text where the game tells you what your action (pressing a key) has resulted in. These messages tell you how you are getting on, what attacks a monster using against you, whether you have hit your target, etc etc.
Finding Rodney
In the beginning, you create character, pick a name and choose a class. You also select a gender, race, and pick an alignment. each class places restrictions on other factors, so (for instance) Valkyrie can only be female, human and either lawful or neutral. All these factors do make a difference. You character type sets your initial stats, inventory (both involve the Random Number God though) and intrinsics. Race and gender make some minor variations to stats and some interactions, and alignment picks your god, but also dictates what acts you can carry out. Killing and sacrificing your pet is unpopular for a chaotic character, for instance, but probably fatal for a lawful one. Sometimes it's just sarcastic comments, like the one in the screen capture, but sometimes it's a drop in Luck score, which will affect the odds of various actions. Oh - and the phase of the moon will affect the Luck score as well. As will having a Luck Stone in your possession.The aim of the game is to find the Wizard of Yendor (yes, that's "Rodney" spelt backwards), kill him and steal his amulet. That's very hard. Getting the thing back through the dungeons, then through the Elemental and Astral planes is even harder. Finally, you sacrifice the amulet on the alter that you are aligned with and you "ascend to demigod" - that is, you win the game. Like all good theories though, it doesn't take into account how hard the practice is. For a start, there are about 80-85 levels in the dungeon, plus 4 Elemental and 1 Astral Plane. Each game has different levels, although some few will be similar or identical. But may not be in the same place.
The way that you do this is classic dungeon-crawling: kill things, steal their loot, use it or sell it, get better gear, kill bigger creatures, get better loot etc. What raises the game to the heights of genius is the sheer number of things that you can do, and how you can do them.
But the game has one huge advantage over more modern games: it is completely turn-based. That is, you make a turn (move, attack, pickup, buy, sell, quaff, read etc) and the game responds. Need to stop and consider your next move (do you actually have anything which will kill a swarm of bees, and is better to run or fight?) howver, and all you need do is nothing: if you do nothing, then so does the game. Of all the things that will most likely get you killed, playing too fast will contribute to most. Stop. Think. Plan.
Death
One important thing to note about this game is that is can only be played in so-called "Hardcore" mode, also known as: "dead-is-dead". If your character dies, that's it, it's gone forever. Well, unless the game creates a "Bones" level anyway - then you might encounter the same level in a different game, except a new monster is the ghost of your old character. Ghosts are VERY hard to kill for low-level characters, and it's possible to get trapped in a dead-end corridor and starve to death because you can't kill the ghost and it can't kill you. Of course you can scum-save, but this actually removes a lot of the fun (and the screaming frustration when an otherwise good character dies)Which brings me to the essence of Nethack: the sheer variety of ways your character can die. To quote Webster: "I know that Death hath ten thousand several doors for men to take their exits". I assume he'd just spent a few months playing this game when he came up with that. Deaths range from inevitable (teleported to a very deep level and meeting a minatour, through annoying (mobbed by bees or ants) to stupid (falling down stairs whilst over-burdened, dropping your cockatrice corpse and landing on it - you turn to stone). In fact, there's a couple of common acronyms from this game which have become almost common gaming currency: YAAD and YASD: Yet Another Annoying Death and Yet Another Stupid Death. The latter in particular is a rich source of embarrassing anecdotes. To give a flavour (of this, and the game in general) an ex-colleague had this sequence of events: whilst wearing gloves he killed a cockatrice, and used the corpse as a weapon. Most creatures turn to stone on impact, making fights much easy. Most... The first target was an acid blob, which is immune to being turned to stone (and eating their corpse can stop it happening to you if you have enough time). The next target was a nymph. Nymphs seduce you, and then steal your gear while you are paralysed. The nymph stole his gloves, but not the cocktrice corpse, which his character was now wielding with bare hands. He turned to stone.
Not only can you be killed by monsters, you can do stupid things which kill you directly. Here's a few:
Fall downstairs while carrying an iron ball (see later) and have it land on your head if you are wearing a helmet.
Eat too much food (you choke on it, but the game does ask if you want to cintinue if this is a risk).
Zap a wand at a wall and get hit by the richochet.
Polymorph yourself into a monster which has been genocided (that is, all such monsters have been removed).
Look at Medusa. I think you can guess what happens then.
Fall into water and drown.
Sacrifice an aligned priest on his own alter. Seriously, do this once for the laugh, but never again. Reactions range form a summoned demon lord (which can summon another demon lord) to being smited directly by your god.
and unlucky accidents:
Quaff a potion of acid if your health is low.
Mix an acid potion with a water potion (it explodes, and your cause of death is given as "elementary chemistry").
Have a boulder fall on your head if you aren't wearing a helmet.
Quaff a potion of oil and have your weapon keep dropping ut of your
hands whilst being attacked.
and so on. Really, there are hundreds of stupid and annoying ways to die.
A monster for every occasion
And there are hundreds of different types of monster. Each monster has different attacks, defences, intrinsics, resistances, and can do different things to you. They all "drop" different things when they die, but in this case what they drop is mostly related to what they are. Some moneters can pick up items and use them against you, or for yourself - if they have hands. Humanoids creatures will pick up and equip armour, weapons, potions, wands and scrolls. If they pick up a Wand of Digging for example, they will use it dig through the floor to escape you. If it's a Wand of Death, they will use it on you. You can guess the result of that. Unless you have Shield of Reflection. Or are immune to disintegration. Interestingly, monsters can identify everything (see later) but cannot detect curse status (again, see later). This can be useful for identifying stuff. Some creatures will just eat the stuff they find, if they can: Rust Monsters will eat anything metal for example. That includes your weapons and armour if they attack you. Each of their hits weakens the item attacked. But obviously they can't affect leather or wood - because they don't rust.Some monsters don't attack you at all. They might be aligned with your: hobbits won't attack lawful characters unless you attack them first, for example. Or you are wearing a Ring of Conflict - that causes everything to attack everything. Not always a good idea when you are standing next to an otherwise peaceful shopkeeper. Other monsters have no attack to aim at you: Floating Eyes just wander around trying to get close to you. But beware if you hit them: unless you kill them first blow you will be paralysed on the spot for a lot of moves, and prey to everything else. A common death for new players is to get killed by something trivial like a newt whilst paralysed.
Obviously some monsters just want to kill you, but a few have special attacks. As mentioned earlier, nymphs seduce you, and whilst you are paralysed they steal bits of your gear. And the dev team being evil, they always know the best bits to nick, starting with the weilded weapon and your armour. In an emergency though, this can be useful: they will steal cursed items (of which, more later). Succuii and Incubii will also seduce you. They don't steal stuff, but they do remove all your armour (but only if the attacker is the opposite gender to your character - their are no gay attackers here) which is a bit annoying if you are right next to big monster when this happens. There are monsters which damage your gear, monsters which paralyse you, and monsters which turn you to stone. And there are traps which turn you into other monsters. There are monsters which lurk in water, and which drag you in and drown you. Mind flayers eat your brains. There's a demon lard which gives you disease, and another which starves you. And Nurses heal you. Well, they would, wouldn't they?
You are what you eat
Definitely so in this game. Eat a red dragon (which breaths fire) and there's a high probablity (as far as I know it has been nerfed from "will certainly happen) that you will be immune to fire. Other monster corpses give you other immunities, even to Death Rays. But other monsters poison you if you eat them, and if the monster has been dead for a while you can get food poisoning - and both of these can kill. You'll die even quicker if you eat something like a cockatrice corpse, because that will turn you to stone. As will one biting you. Or touching a dead one with your bare hands. Other carcasses will give you acid damage. But corpses are needed for food though: your character must eat or they will starve to death. Before that happens though, you start fainting from hunger, and it's not uncommon to be attacked and killed whilst unconcious.Look, are you getting an idea of how complex this game is yet? Because I've not even got to the complicated bit yet.
So what do I do with this then?
The key to Nethack is the items. But there are a lot of them. You get weapons, armour (in parts for body, head, hands and feet), amulets, rings (you can wear one on each hand), wands, potions, scrolls and books. Dozens of each kind, except the more limited amulets. And objects (sacks, rocks, chains, statues etc etc). All of which can used in different ways, and sometimes in combination. Potions can be quaffed ("like drinking but you spill more", to quote Terry Pratchett) or mixed, and some potions can be dipped onto weapons. Some potions are cleared if you dip a unicorn horn in them. They can do things like confuse, give you hallucinations (where every object in the dungeon changes appearance every moving turn, and apparent monster changes include creatures not actually in the game). Scrolls can be read. Apart from one, which is best stood on. Amulets can help you. Or kill you. Or even bring you back to life (it's called an Amulet of Life Saving for a reason). But there's two factors which make all this vastly more complicated than it already is - which is bad enough:1) You don't know what anything is. An amulet is "Hexagonal", or Triangular" etc, but that's all you know. So you need to work out what it is. One way would be to put it on. But if it's an Amulet of Strangulation you have five moving turns to remove it and then you die. And if it's cursed, it won't come off (more in the next bit). If the effect is not obvious then even if you put it on you might not know what it is. Scrolls just have a name (YLOH ELBIB for example), potions have a colour, as do books. Rings have a texture or stone ("iron ring" etc). And don't think you last game will help: each object type is randomised for each new game.
To add to the confusion, some objects have secondary characteristics which are intrinstic to their description. This characteristic is always true for that type of object, no matter what the thing does as a main property. For example, rings with hard stones can used engrave with. A diamond ring can always engrave, whether it's a Ring of Conflict, or a Ring of Levitation. Why would you want to engrave? You've guesssed it: see later.
So how do you identify stuff? Well, this being Nethack, there are loads of ways. The best is a Scroll of Identify, which lets you identify one or more items. Using the item may work, but can be dangerous or even deadly. A Scroll of Punishment will fix an iron ball and chain to your leg, which slows you down a lot. A Scroll of Summon Monster does guess what. But a Scroll of Enchant Weapon is good. It can be even better if you are Confused. For wands, try engraving the ground with them. This can work for some rings as well. Try dropping rings down a sink (but you usually lose them forever, with one exception, the Ring of Finding "You thought you lost your ring, but look, there is it is!"). But as noted, sometimes using the item still won't tell you what it is, if the effect is subtle, or there is no suitable target (A Scroll of Detect Monster won't work if all the monsters on your level are dead).
2) Things can be cursed. All items in the game will be one of three states: cursed, uncursed, or blessed. "Uncursed" is the neutral state, where the object has the base properties for that item. The other two states modify that state. What that modification is depends on the object.
Cursed amulets, rings, weapons or armour cannot be removed. Unless you can persuade a nymph to steal them. They may also have a lower rating for theit main effect. A blessed ring, weapon or armour item has a higher rating, so a blessed piece of (say) armour might have +1 or +2 added to the armour rating (just to confuse you, positive armour ratings on items are taken away from your base AR of 10, so the lower the AR, the better). Some objects are similar: cursed pickaxes cannot be removed (to wield a better weapon) and neither can cursed blindfolds. Some rings, and all amulets, are without "ratings as such, so whether it is cursed or not will only annoy you if you can't take it off. Which can be very annoying for a cursed Ring of Levitation, as it will leave you hovering in mid-air. You can be attacked and kill things, but you can touch corpses, or loot corpses or boxes. Nor can you go downstairs, but you can go upstairs. Of course, if you move over a sink you fall to the ground. "Sink". Geddit?
Wands are not really affected by curse status, except for the changed probability of expolding when used, but the effect on scrolls and potions vary wildly, based on the item in question. Take the Potion of Gain Level. An uncursed option will cause you to gain one level in one intrinsic (strength, dexterity etc) chosen at random. A blessed potion potion will raise all your intrinsics by one lvel. If you quaff a cursed Potion of Gain Level you rise up through the ceiling to the dungeon level above. "Gain level." Geddit? Look, I didn't invent these puns so don't blame me. An uncursed Scroll of Genocide removed one precise type of monster from the game ("soldier ants"), and a blessed one removes all of a class "all insects represented as an 'a' "). From memory you cannot genocide "@" and thus yourself. If however, you have been polymorphed into a dragon, then you can genocide "D" and thus die instantly. YASD. A cursed Scroll of Genocide offers to remove a type of monster, then places eight of them on all the nearest squares. This is usually followed by death. Those are just examples.
Finally, and to cause even more complications, if you are blind, confused or hallucinating, the effects of certain scrolls and potions change yet again, but are still dependant on curse status. Did I tell you that this game was complicated?
The Dev Team thinks of everything
No, they really do. On TV Tropes this is rightly the Trope Namer. Just get a flavour of this lot, and remember that it's just a part of what you can do, and what the game will respond with. Try to "apply"a chain to a nymph and you will get a sarcastic comment. Try whatever you want, in whatever way you want, and I guarantee that the devs have got an appropriate response for you.So why play it?
Because it will take you months to get even half-way good at it, and months more to succeed (if you ever do), and in all that time no two games will be the same. You'll have streaks of good fortune (I once found a Blessed Wand of Wishing, which does what you think it would do as the very first item in the game) and other streaks where you'd swear that the RNG really likes to watch you suffer. You'll witness the dev team's weird, and often evil, sense of humour over and over again. And bit by bit, as you get better, it will draw you in. There are other forks of this game, like Angband, but this is Master."Oh no, he's using the Touch of Death! Lucky for you it didn't work!"