NetHack

NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987 with ASCII graphics. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack (1985), which is a descendant of Rogue (1980). Comparing it with Rogue, Engadget's Justin Olivetti wrote that it took its exploration aspect and "made it far richer with an encyclopedia of objects, a larger vocabulary, a wealth of pop culture mentions, and a puzzler's attitude." In 2000, Salon described it as "one of the finest gaming experiences the computing world has to offer."

The player chooses a character class and their mission is to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor in a randomly generated dungeon.

History and development

The first version of NetHack was released by Mike Stephenson on July 28, 1987.

A core development team emerged with the release of Nethack 3.0 in July 1989. Over the next 14 years of development they established a tight-lipped culture, revealing little, if anything, between releases. Owing to the ever-increasing depth and complexity found in each release, the development team enjoys a near-mythical status among some fans. This perceived omniscience is captured in the initialism TDTTOE, "The DevTeam Thinks of Everything".