Game News Nethack in GameSpy's Hall o' Fame

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Nethack

<a href="http://www.gamespy.com/">GameSpy</a> has <A href="http://www.gamespy.com/legacy/halloffame/nethack_a.shtm">put Nethack in their Hall o' Fame</a>. <A href="http://www.nethack.org/">Nethack</a> is one of the big daddies of the rogue-likes, for those who don't know what it is. Here's a clip:
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<blockquote>It's no wonder that people have played NetHack for years and have yet to win (or "Ascend," as its called in game terms.) The NetHack UseNet Group continues to thrive, and has even developed its own culture and language. "YASD" means "Yet Another Stupid Death," wherein a promising character is foiled by a terrible coincidence or mistake (like accidently making a human sacrifice at an altar to a lawful God.) "Spoilers" are secrets of the game that are usually more fun when discovered on your own (for instance, try kicking a kitchen sink in the game.) And of course to "Ascend" is to win the game, an accomplishment which is accompanied by posting about your triumph to the newsgroup where you can celebrate among the others who have actually managed to conquer the enormous game and its huge dramatic epilogue. </blockquote>
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YASD is really the whole point of a detailed death system like this game has. Got to love it just for that.
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Shame they didn't mention the graphical ones like <A href="http://falconseye.sourceforge.net/">Falcon's Eye</A>, <A href="http://slashem.sourceforge.net/">SLASH'EM</a>, and <A href="http://www.linuxgames.co.za/noeGNUd/">noeGNUd</a> in this article, but only mention that <A href="http://www.nethack.org">Nethack</a> is ASCII, which isn't completely true.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

[Vault Dweller]

Here is my favorite part:

There's some kind of magic in NetHack, a world so huge and complex that every game is completely different, where each new item can twist the gameplay in new directions. Mostly we love it for the surprises -- the number of times you try some amazingly obscure action and find out that it works, leaving you to slump back in your chair and exclaim, "They thought of everything!"

It's a shame that these principles established over a decade ago are still being ignored and instead of thinking of everything game developers think of one way of doing things and force you to follow it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

We're actually approaching the two decade mark on Nethack. It was created in 1985, IIRC.

 

[Ausir]

Why is it 1992 in our database then?

 

[Psilon]

The copyright on the NetHack license says 1989. On the other hand, the guidebook claims version 3.2 (released in 1996) "marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of the development team." Given that Mike Stephenson did quite a bit of work in soldering together the various Hack versions before officially starting the dev team, Saint's guess of 1985 seems pretty close.

Really, though, NetHack's based off even older Unix games. With the amount of cross-pollination between the projects (Hack, Rogue, Angband, Moria, etc.) who knows what the true creation date is?

 

[Spazmo]

It says 1992 because Mobygames told me 1992. Change it to whatever it really is then.