Comment by 🚀 mbays
Re: "To me, NetHack and Gemini have a similar aesthetic. Not so…"
True. Though nethack is maybe not the roguelike which is truest to this low-weight ideal. I'd say rogue is closer, brogue too, and perhaps 868-HACK or Cinco Paus are even closer (if you forgive the graphics). Still, nethack is of course wonderful. Congratulations on the ascension. I came very close the other decade (got out of the dungeon), but never quite made it. A retirement project, perhaps...
Feb 02 · 3 months ago
16 Later Comments ↓
I guess I have to figure out what ascending an Archaeologist is. I hope it's not a euphemism for sex of some sort.
🗡️ The_Jackal · Feb 02 at 02:08:
@stack Nethack is some terminal based roguelike game from what I've seen, so maybe it's related to that.
👻 darkghost · Feb 02 at 02:47:
I haven't had a nethack game in 26 years. Maybe it's time.
its quite funny to me how a dungeon crawler(?) roguelike is called nethack. i would think something more techy,,
wonder where the name came from... (or is it pronounced ne-thack and its the name of the boss :P)
🎲 lab6 [OP/mod] · Feb 02 at 10:09:
Wikipedia explains what is probably the real name origin, but my (definitely false) headcanon is that it is concordant to NetBSD, whose tagline is "Of course it runs NetBSD" - because there are so many ports of NetHack, we can usually say *of course* it runs NetHack.
👻 darkghost · Feb 02 at 10:28:
My recollection is that it was an open source version of a rogue like called hack that was developed collaboratively on this new thing called the Internet or 'net. Trust me, it was way cooler sounding in 1987. It was also pretty novel to not have everybody in the same building working on a piece of software, pretty much the stuff of science fiction.
I haven't played Nethack, I can give it a try. (I have played maybe one text based game from Itchio iirc, the game actually uses letter that represent things in the game, P for player for example) And a text based roguelike sounds pretty interesting toot tbh.
@lab6 This has nothing to do with Nethack, but I'm curious: are you the same lab6 who publishes PDFs at lab6.com?
🎲 lab6 [OP/mod] · Feb 02 at 18:10:
@jsreed5 I usually deny all knowledge…
It’s not too far off topic - the PDFs have quite a bit of oblique crypto-roguelike content.
@lab6 just started digging through those PDFs. that's neat. how does one get the latest issue, unless @jsreed5 has a copy
🎲 lab6 [OP/mod] · Feb 02 at 21:35:
@gritty There's a world-readable copy at /home/lab6/8 on tilde.club if you happen to be on there, though I'll most likely delete that soon as I'm trying to Kevin Bacon this one. If you grab it, and this thread remains findable, other people may come asking you for it :)
as a matter of fact, I DO have a tilde.club account.
@lab6 I've been reading since issue 0 and I really enjoy your writings. They remind me of articles one would find in PoC||GTFO, especially Critical CSV Theory.
In the spirit of sneakernets, I'd honestly be willing to send you a USB drive to copy issue 8 onto.
finally sat down and tried nethack. once I figured out that you need a .nethackrc file to use the numpad, it was a lot better. that, and the key binding cheat sheet. no walkthroughs.
@gritty Did you ever get a copy of issue 8? I don't have a tilde.club account, so I can't get it from there.
I did! I have all the issues I believe.
I can post when I'm back home
Original Post
To me, NetHack and Gemini have a similar aesthetic. Not so much visually — although both are text-based (sort of) — but in the power-to-weight ratio sense that I believe Solderpunk had in mind. You get a lot of excitement and atmosphere out of those ASCII characters, and the experience is… wholesome? Restrained? Sustainable? In a way that games driven by expensive energy-hungry GPUs are not. Anyway I just ascended an Archaeologist so I’m feeling good about it. I’d welcome a small web space for...