NetHack

Introduction and general advice

Nethack is a roguelike computer game in which your objective is to go down to the bottom of the Dungeons of Doom and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. It can be downloaded for free from the official Nethack home page.

Nethack is a complicated game, and it can be difficult to understand all the details of how it works. There are numerous "spoilers" available on the Web; here is a fairly complete list. If you'd prefer to figure out the game for yourself, here are a few tips that may help:

• Read the Guidebook that comes with the game.
• Fortune cookies, graffiti and the Oracle will all give you cryptic hints, but only the Oracle's hints are guaranteed to be helpful.
• It's usually safe to try wielding or wearing items that aren't cursed (though a few particularly nasty items become cursed when worn). Pets are reluctant to step on cursed items.
• To determine what a magical item is, read a scroll of identify.
• To determine what special abilities your character has picked up, use a wand or potion of enlightenment.

What type of character to play?

If you are a beginner, it is much easier to stay alive as a big dumb warrior (such as a Barbarian, Valkyrie or Samurai) than as a highly intelligent but physically weak magic user (such as a Wizard or Healer).

Food

Eat these corpses:

• wraith (level up)
• giant (strength up)
• mind flayer (intelligence up)
• floating eye (you get telepathy-skill)
• quantum mechanic (you get speed-skill if you don't already have it, but lose it if you do)

Don't eat these corpses:

• cockatrice, chickatrice, Death, Famine, Pestilence (you die)
• your own race (cannibalism gives you aggravate monster -skill)
• cats and dogs (gods don't like it)
• werewolves, -rats, -jackals (you become one)

Genocide

It's a good idea to genocide all kinds of liches (use a blessed scroll of genocide and take out "L"), because they are powerful spellcasters who can curse your items and summon hordes of nasty monsters.

Mind flayers and master mind flayers should also be genocided, because they eat your brain, causing you to forget what you've learned, and in extreme cases, to die from brainlessness. If your character is a dwarf, remember to use two uncursed scrolls rather than one blessed scroll!

If you have spare scrolls of genocide, consider getting rid of the following monsters:

• Eels (can drown you, but can be avoided with careful play, an oilskin cloak, or an amulet of magical breathing)
• Rust monsters and disenchanters (can damage your armour and weapons)
• Olog-hai and other trolls (have the annoying habit of constantly rising from the dead)