NetHack

The classic roguelike adventure: Descend the Mazes of Menace and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor!

NOTE: This is a demo website! Please visit www.nethack.org for the real NetHack website.

About NetHack

NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration roguelike game that runs on a wide variety of computer systems, with a variety of graphical and text interfaces all using the same game engine.

Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons-inspired games, the emphasis in NetHack is on discovering the detail of the dungeon and not simply killing everything in sight - in fact, killing everything in sight is a good way to die quickly.

NetHack is free software. While there is no monetary cost associated with it, NetHack is not public domain. Please see our license for details.

How is NetHack different from other role-playing games?

NetHack belongs to a genre of video games known as roguelikes: games that were inspired by a classic game by the name of Rogue. (Learn more at Rogue (video game) on Wikipedia.)

The definition of what makes a game "roguelike" is rather nebulous and has been the topic of many debates, but there are a few aspects shared by games that are considered "roguelike", inherited from Rogue:

  1. Permanent death – If your character dies, their save file is erased, meaning that death is permanent. This gives roguelikes a strong sense of tension during play, and accomplishment in succeeding.
  2. Random level generation – To compensate for permanent death, each game presents a different landscape: the random number generator provides an essentially unlimited number of variations of the dungeon and its denizens to be discovered by the player.
  3. Emphasis on game mechanics – What elevates roguelikes beyond an exercise in hardcore dice-rolling is their emphasis on game mechanics, just waiting to be learned and mastered by players: teaching them lessons of hazards and giving them the tools they ultimately need to succeed. With every death comes a lesson to be learned, and every discovery about how the game works becomes a tool to get a little further next time.

This combination of permanent death, random level generation and emphasis on game mechanics grants roguelikes immense replay value: it is not uncommon for people to play roguelikes for years, playing, dying and starting again with many characters. In that time, some players will win dozens of times, whilst for others victory will remain a distant, elusive dream.

How is NetHack different from other roguelikes?

NetHack is one of the oldest actively-played roguelikes in existence: its development goes back all the way to 1985! In its twenty-odd years of development, it has accumulated the collective wisdom, creativity, humor and geek culture of dozens of contributors. NetHack contains literally hundreds of game mechanics, ranging from pragmatic to whimsical. Even to this day, players who have won it (or "ascended" in NetHack terms) many times still occasionally learn new things about it. The sheer scope and intricacy of NetHack has inspired many games that have come after it.

NetHack is also characterized by:

  1. Persistent levels – Previously-visited levels can be returned to, in roughly the same state as they were left.
  2. Dungeon branches – The Mazes of Menace descend ever-downward, but occasionally they branch off into different areas. An early example is the Gnomish Mines: a dark, organic system of caverns, and the home the many gnomes and dwarves that toil within it.
  3. Blessings and curses – Some roguelikes allow objects to be cursed, which often means that their quality is degraded. NetHack also allows objects to be blessed, improving their functionality.
  4. Multiple uses for objects – For example, a cream pie can be eaten. It could also be wielded against or thrown at creatures to blind them, It can even be applied to your own face to blind yourself! Many other objects in NetHack work this way; get creative!
  5. Non-player characters – You can #chat to most denizens of the dungeon. Most will simply grunt in reply, but some can be paid, bribed, conversed, consulted or consorted with. You can even gain pets and allies to fight on your behalf!
  6. Conducts – Winning is recognized in almost all roguelikes, but for the truly hardcore players, NetHack recognizes victory while abstaining from praying for help, reading, eating meat, fighting with a wielded weapon and even eating food altogether! Winning with many conducts puts you amongst the best of the best of NetHack players.

There exist many roguelikes, but only NetHack is NetHack.