In the past few years there has been a huge increase of Rogue-like games, especially thanks to the indie scene. Today, it is very fitting to point out one of the most important representatives of this genre.

Rogue (1980) gave birth to Hack in 1985, which in turn gave birth to NetHack in 1987, when the internet was still in its infancy.

NetHack is not only one of the longest, most complex, feature-rich and influential games ever made, but it has caused excitement, joy and (mostly) frustration – just search for YASD on-line – amongst many many geeks around the world.

For a very long time NetHack was considered one of the oldest games still developed. With the big 3.6.0 update this week, it might actually have become the single oldest one there is1.

Feature-wise this update mostly pulls some of the nice changes that accumulated in forked variants of NetHack in the past decade. Apart from that the team has fixed bugs and rewritten the code to allow bigger improvements later on.

More importantly is the fact that “The [legendary] DevTeam [that] Thinks of Everything” has grown (and plans to grow still) as well as made changes in the infrastructure and procedures that should enable easier and faster development in the future.

Last, but by no means least, this version introduces a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett, one of NetHack’s most celebrity player – may he rest in peace, he will be missed.

hook out ↦ seriously considering to give nethack a go again, hopefully finally survive past the 3rd level

Hat tip to Ade, who blogged about it earlier today


  1. I do not have any data, but I would very much doubt that after almost 30 years (Net)Hack has any competition in this regard. 


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