Hacker News Reader

Comment by picozeta | Hacker News Reader

It's famous in the roguelike world but I dislike that it is practically pretty much impossible to win without spoilers [0] (which means you have to read about it in wikis and co. to find a strategy that works).

[0 I know there are some people who managed to ascend (win) without reading up, but they are probably in the < 0.01% so it's definitely not the norm.

View on HN

I kinda like that about Nethack and always have, to be honest. I like that even when I know exactly how it works I have to execute effectively.

Having all the rules right there for thinking through from one turn to the next was really compelling to me. (I've ascended almost every role now, but that started only like four years ago!)

Nethacks like most traditional roguelike is amongst these games I like to call checklist tickers, which is to say with a moderate amount of luck, if you plod through the required amount of trivia and perfectly follow the winning moves checklist you should succeed. It kind of ruins the fun for me - playing feels more like a chore than an actual game - but it seems really enjoyable to some.

I would submit that those who enjoy the genre most are probably those who largely attempt to uncover the "winning moves checklist" for themselves.

I enjoy games like this (and also other genres, like city sims or turn-based strategy games) because I enjoy seeing what happens. It's a process of discovery and interaction.

In the case of NetHack, though, it's mostly about how much hilarious stupid stuff happens, like the time I started a dungeon, took my first step, and my kitten triggered a boulder trap and killed my instantly. Thanks, kitten.

I appreciate what you're saying, but my strategy is to just enjoy playing badly. :-) #neverascended

NetHack is more about trial and error than simply progressing and winning.

It's definitely a throwback to an era of gaming where it was hard to have a lot of content, and so time was often spent on mastering challenges.

I don't know. I'd say if it's one thing nethack has, it's content. There's a huge number of monsters and items (and an especially huge amount of interactions between them!)

"It's famous in the roguelike world but I dislike that it is practically pretty much impossible to win without spoilers [0] (which means you have to read about it in wikis and co. to find a strategy that works)."

In my own case, I found the reading of the spoiler documents to be nearly as interesting and fun as playing the game.

Agree. In fact, actually playing the game is rather boring and frustrating. Just enjoy reading the guides and then skip the tedium of playing through.

Thank you! I've been giving up on Nethack for over 20 years because I can't figure out how to play this stupid game. After all this time it wasn't me.

33 years of frustration here.

You can win?

I assumed it never ends.

People win it every day.

And publicly too: https://alt.org/nethack/top-3.6.php

The original Rogue still holds up as a great game. I've played the DOSBox version and found it to be not quite as deep as Nethack, but more fun overall.

Brogue is a great spiritual successor to Rogue:

In nethack it's easy to just grind until you're invincible (barring YASD/"yet another stupid death", a death usually brought on by inattention rather than bad strategy or tactics) and then the endgame is a cake walk.

In Brogue (at least at the skill level I'm at), dashing through the last few levels to the amulet using up a lot of resources to survive and escape is very common.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com