NetHack

[ainmosni]

#10723

I would love to see DGC talk about NetHack, an open source game that first saw life in 1987, but is still being developed to this day. The current version is 3.6.7, and DOS is STILL supported!

This is a game that has had so much development that a common phrase is “Of course the developers thought of that”, when trying some weird thing and finding that it actually does something.

[Evil Taco]

#11019

That’s neat that Nethack still supports DOS! This alone makes it a worthy selection.

I certainly spent many an hour playing several versions of Nethack – I believe I first played Hack, not Nethack! I must have played Nethack 3.1.3 a bit and it was a big deal when 3.2.0 came out in 1996. I think I must have played a substantial amount of the 3.4 series, but the “reboot” of 3.6 series I’ve only fired up a couple of times. It would be fun to play this one for the club.

[butterburp]

#11022

I’ve known about this for ages, have played a time or two but never really got into it. A couple of questions:

1) Which versions work on DOS? I’m sorting through this page:
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/MS-DOS

and it appears 3.0+ is a no-go due to memory limitations. So that leaves…2.3e? Is there anything between 2.3 and 3.0?

2) Are there binaries/executables anywhere? Or is the idea that if you can’t compile (which I can’t, to save my life) you’re not “l33t” enough to play?

[butterburp]

#11026

Found this for 2.3e:
https://esp.iki.fi/dos-real-mode-nethack-binaries.html

I still don’t get why there are so few compiled copies out there, unless it’s the desire to be ‘l33t’ that I speculated on above. Don’t the NH folks want people to enjoy their game? Lol

[ainmosni]

#11027

The 3.6.7 binaries for DOS are linked from the Nethack downloads page: https://www.nethack.org/v367/ports/download-msdos.html

And the linux binaries are not there, mostly because I assume every linux distribution will have their own nethack package.

[butterburp]

#11028

Interesting, thanks! I think I understand the wiki now. It looks like all versions except 3.6.0 can run in DOS with some added tricks or caveats (like requiring overlays or a 386 or VESA). I still might try some of the older versions if I can find the binaries, just to see how far it has come. Thanx

EDIT: Thanks to a kind soul who compiled 1.3d for Windows…
https://virtuallyfun.com/2016/07/19/spent-some-more-time-messing-with-nethack-1-3d-revived/

…I was able to experience a very early version. It did not go well…

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