xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/01/90)
This got posted in comp.sys.amiga. It is a fine, impassioned ad for nethack. It deserves wider circulation. Nethack is available for most microcomputers. If anything, Steve understates the case. Note the followup to rec.games.hack. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) writes: > fhwri%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes: >>I haven't seen Nethack, but Hack Lite had a little dog. You have to have him > [...] >>MORIA is the *BEST* of the PD hack & slashers! You just have to be patient > [...] >You haven't seen Nethack, but you feel qualified to make a judgement of >what is the best pd hack game? ;^) > >Well, Moria is an interesting game, but it has nowhere *near* the depth >of nethack. The spoiler sheet I have on nethack is 40 pages of closely >spaced text. There are so many behavioral complexities in nethack. You >can do things like training your dog to rob things from the store (don't >try it yourself, or the keystone kops will come after you). You can chat >with some of the creatures in the dungeon. You get all sorts of intrinsics >from eating the right kinds of critters (like the ability to teleport at >will, intrinsic fire resistance, intrinsic cold resistance, sleep resistance, >disintegration resistance, etc). > >Also, once you explore a level it remains explored (in Moria once you leave >a level it is regenerated from scratch). > >There are various special armors and weapons like Moria. There is also >a great deal of urgency to perform in Nethack, because food is much scarcer >in Nethack, and you run out of food faster. You have to live off the land >most of the time, eating whatever you can kill. You learn quickly what >animals are good for you and which ones will kill you to eat them. > >You have to watch out for critters that poison you, burn you, stun you, >confuse you, steal your money, steal your artifacts, freeze you, turn >you to stone, polymorph you (turn you temporarilly into a critter of >some random type) disintegrate you, put you to sleep, shock you, weaken >you, steal your experience levels, teleport you, give you a disease, or >turn you into a were-creature (werewolf, werejackal, wererat), which means >until you are cured you will occassionally turn into a rat or a wolf or >a jackal for a while. Really big critters like purple worms will swallow >you whole, which means you have about 4 or 5 turns (depending on your armor) >to dig or teleport out of its belly before you are completely digested. > >When you die all of your belongings are left lying where you died, and all >the critters that were killing you are still there. The next time you play, >if you come to the level you died on before, you will find the ghost of your >last character standing guard over the booty. Ghosts can be killed, but they >are really hard to hit. Sometimes the monsters that killed you continue to >kill you game after game on the same level, eventually producing what is >known as a ghost level. This is a level with 8 or 9 ghosts on it. It >is hard to kill them all, but once you do you will have a lot of weapons and >armor to play with. But you have to watch out because ghost treasure >usually has curses on it, and you will need to remove the curses before >you use the artifacts. > >There are so many interesting little tricks in the game. For example, if >you happen to have a long sword and you find a pool of water, and your >luck is high enough, then when you dip the sword into the pool a hand will >come up out of the water and turn your sword into Excaliber (a very good >weapon, especially if you get any plusses added to it). But there is also >the chance that your fooling around with pools will attract a water nymph, >who will progressively steal everything you own until you are naked and >poverty-stricken. The only way to get your stuff back is to find the nymph >who took it and kill her. > >I could go on, but it would take all day. > >If you haven't tried nethack (not hacklight) you should try it. But try to >get the spoiler or else play the game in explore mode (non-scoring mode in >which you have infinite lives) for a while. Nethack is much more severe >than Moria, and the chances are good that you will not survive the first >level until you get some experience playing the game. There is an incredible >variety of monsters, some of whom will eat the very walls of the dungeon >itself. Nearly all of them would enjoy a bite or two of you ;^). > >-- > _. >--Steve ._||__ DISCLAIMER: All opinions are my own. > Warren v\ *| ---------------------------------------------- > V {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM