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Nethack

Nethack

Immediate things observed in Nethack 3.6 (mild spoilers)

With the news of Nethack 3.6 releasing this week, I naturally had to scamper home and plunk that puppy onto my Macbook. And wake up Natil the Ranger again!

The general buzz is that the featureset of the game has not changed hugely. However, just by a couple of casual runs with it tonight, I have noticed some obvious changes. Spoilers behind the fold if you don’t want to know and would rather figure these things out by playing yourself!

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Nethack

Holy crap Nethack finally put out a new version!

For those of you who didn’t just see me gasp about this on the social networks, Dara just gave me the heads up: Nethack, which has been lying apparently idle for years, has actually released a new version. 3.6.0. NETHACK LIVES!

Those of you who have followed me long enough to have seen me post on LJ or on my annathepiper.org blog may recall that I have played this game off and on over the years, ever since 198-freggin’-7. I’ve beaten it only twice, once way back on version 2.something-or-other, before they even implemented any stats besides Strength, and back when all you had to do to beat the game was get out of the dungeon with the Amulet of Yendor. And I beat it once after that, as chronicled on LJ here, in the saga “Norse Girl Makes Good”.

I’d been wondering whether we were actually going to see a new version, since earlier this year, I saw nethack.org get updated with a notice from the Dev Team that unauthorized versions had leaked into the wild. And now apparently the wait is over. From what I’m seeing on the download page, we have official binaries available for Windows (modern versions of Windows, 7 through 10), and OS X (which they’re saying should include 10.7 and later). I’m not seeing references to official Linux binaries or packages yet, but I daresay it’ll be inevitable that packages will start showing up in Linux releases, and the source code is also available for those of you who are ambitious enough to do your own compiling.

RIGHT THEN. Looks like I’m going to have to break out Natil the Ranger again. Those grid bugs ain’t gonna zap themselves!

(And yay I get to break out my Nethack LJ and Dreamwidth icons again!)

(Does Nethack count as a casual game? Technically it might, but as anyone who’s ever played this thing knows, there is not a damn thing casual about a serious game of Nethack. ;D )

Music, Nethack

If Irish musicians played Nethack

It has amused me for a while now that in the vast repertoire of tunes available to Irish musicians, several of them have vaguely SF/F-nal names, like “King of the Fairies”, “Queen of the Fairies”, and “The Elven Cloak”.

That last one in particular, though, got me thinking of Nethack thanks to my propensity for playing Elf characters. Which, of course, led me to wonder about other hypothetical Nethack-themed Irish tune names! Such as:

  • The Surly Shopkeeper
  • Farewell to My Pet Cat
  • Gold in the Bag of Holding
  • The Cursed Loadstone Lament
  • The Polymorph Trap Jig (this one would definitely change keys AND time signatures between the A part, the B part, and the C part)
  • Yet Another Stupid Death Reel
  • The Elven Boots
  • The Infravision Jig
  • Izchak’s Magic Lamp (That I Stole in Minetown)
  • The Vibrating Square
  • The Lich That Cursed My Broadsword
  • Road to Gehennom
  • Drowsy Maggie Needs Sleep Resistance
  • A Luckstone to Banish Misfortune
  • The Succubus Washerwoman

Anybody got any others?