9/23/20 NetHack (1992)

NetHack (1992) by many kind and cool people for DOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. This game might hold the record for longest ongoing independent development. The name has two stems, Hack being the original Roguelike it’s based on, and Net referring to this project’s continuous development beginning with Usenet. That’s right, Usenet, AKA the internet before the internet. A small group of independent programmer’s have been consistently updating it with new features in a variety of different versions. The most recent version to receive an update was SpliceHack back in May of this year. Having played Rogue, this game isn’t too far off, though it does include some cool features like classes and shops. I was surprised at how simple the controls were for an ASCII game, with only some slight awkwardness in terms of picking up and putting down items during my playtime. It is, however, a solidly engrossing Roguelike, and I found myself playing for longer than expected. There is obviously much, much more to this game than meets the eye, and I may have dipped my toe into an ocean just looking for something to play. Gotta love these sorts of passion projects; go check out NetHack and its offspring at nethack.org and nethackwiki.com!