Sup I'm geeky.

I have been around the Internet on a regular basis since like ever. I even remember when Rogue and Roguelikes were pretty damned popular, especially Nethack. Unfortunately, being like 6 at the time, I would be damned if I could ever actually beat the difficult game that is Nethack.

But now that the logical processor of my brain has fully developed and I can understand and think in a critical manner, I think it is time to give it a shot. Nethack is a 20-year-old game, and from what I have read, there are people that have played it consistently since its release and still have not beat it. (To support this point, my few games so far have been sorely unsuccessful)

For anyone that does not know what a Roguelike is, here is a random picture of Nethack I grabbed off of Google:



The core of it can be run purely in a terminal, but graphical ports do exist. Naturally, I am going to play it with ASCII graphics, because it is fucking awesome picking up $, (, ], and *.

(Gold, either a weapon or an armor, miscellaneous items, gems)

That all aside, the point of the game, as far as the basic read-me discloses, is to find an amulet, then offer it to some god so that he can Ascend to a higher level than the other gods. A new character starts in the Dungeons of Doom. From there, I have found another dungeon - Gnomish Mines. I am not sure how the Mines play into the game yet.

Yeah, I am trying to beat this game with absolutely no idea what I am doing.

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As of the time of this post, I have played six games. Two of these characters have made it to Dungeon Level (dlvl) 6 - a Wizard and a Monk.

My other four have died on either dlvl 1 or 2.

After a character dies or Ascends, special stats are given about the game; stats of the character not immediately disclosed, challenges met, and other things. For example, if a character never fell asleep, they were Sleep Resistant.

My Wizard was "extremely unlucky". At dlvl 1, he ran into two Teleportation traps, then fell down a floor and broke his leg, was extremely hated by his alignment god Anhur (smitten after praying for food), and had to kick through 30 walls to get out of a bricked off room, immediately finding a pick-axe on the other side that would have made the task much simpler.

The game telling me that my character was extremely unlucky was a slap in the face. :(

So far, here are the logs of the Wizard and the Monk.

Goma-Wiz-Elf-Male-Chaotic died in The Gnomish Mines on level 6. Killed by a gnome, while helpless. [fainted from starvation] 4602 points.

Goma-Monk-Human-Male-Lawful died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 8. Killed by a Woodland-elf. 3270 points.

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Hiya-Samurai-Human-Female-Lawful died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 2. Killed by a jackal.

320 glorious turns of, "God damn it where's the stairs?!" Hiya got stuck on the second level with no direct path leading to the next stairs. After a short bit of wandering, I decided the only thing I could do was kick the walls and hope they crumble, which lowers the characters HP slowly. Got ambushed by two jackals when at 3 HP.

Millou-Valkyrie-Dwarf-Female-Lawful died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 5. Killed by a pony.

1178 turns. Each game, the character starts with a pet dependant on their class; dog, cat, or horse. Valkyries start with a dog, and for once the dog turned out to be useful. On the /second turn/, he trips a teleportation trap that turns out to be the only way out of the floor. Some time later, he beats up a jackal that was hitting my while I was distracted with armor antics. Then, he steals a potion for me from a shop. It was rather amusing.

Falz-Knight-Human-Male-Lawful died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 4. Killed by a giant rat.

912 turns. Stupidly equipped a random sword I found and it turned out to be cursed. Falz then could no longer hit anything and a rat owned his 40 HP, 3 points at a time. :(

Afterwards, I played a Healer and a Caveman; both of which did not have any particular specialness to them, except I found out why Lichen are considered the weakest enemy in the game. Their only attack:



Unfortunately, I did not learn much, except.. don't equip random swords. :|

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How many levels are there?

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reply to Locke:

I have no idea. The guidebook said the amulet was located somewhere around dlvl 20, but so far I know of three dungeons that all go from dlvl 1 on, and I am willing to bet that they are all key to Ascending the game.

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roguelikes are sweet.

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