Hack

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Hack
Major Roguelike
Developer Jay Fenlason,

Kenny Woodland,
Mike Thome
and Jon Payne

Theme Fantasy
Influences Rogue
Released 17 December 1984 (1.0.0)
Updated 23 July 1985 (1.0.3)
Licensing
P. Language C
Platforms
Interface ASCII
Game Length
Official site of Hack


Hack was released in 1985, one of the earliest clones of Rogue. It is now known as NetHack.

Description

Hack was an improved version of Rogue and introduced several new features, such as a computer pet dog following the character, several new classes, shops...

Food management was vital in Hack, for the character could easily starve to death if not properly fed.

Versions and platforms

Hack was written by Jay Fenlason in 1985 for Unix systems. Versions 1.0.1 to 1.0.3, the ones first published to Usenet, were re-written by Andries Brouwer. Several versions were developed for DOS and the Atari ST.

Legacy

In 1987, Mike Stephenson merged several Hack versions together and published NetHack, which is still supported today. NetHack in turn influenced games such as ADOM or Crawl.

Hack is the prototype of hacklike games, a whole type of games sharing several primary characteristics (they are usually opposed to bandlike games, games which follow Angband's gameplay).

Related topics

Related links