Which games influenced NetHack?

[Blitz4]

Yes there's Rogue. Video shows some of NetHack, how there's dozens of verbs I can use todo things most games of today don't allow. What games influenced adding so many verbs todo stuff[nethackwiki.com]?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjuTyJlgLJ8

[Masque]

Other than oldschool text adventures like Crowther's "Adventure" a.k.a. Colossal Cave, and the Zork trilogy, I can't think of any actual computer games that predate Nethack and could be considered influences on it.

Nethack is pretty much the first of its kind.

I'd say maybe actual tabletop roleplaying games like D&D influenced this game more than any computer games.

[permanent name]

The game was never released. Couldn't really figure out a use for the command chains I was coming up with, and everybody I tried to show it to immediately got lost or only looked for loops which reduced the number of commands. Don't think I even titled it.

But I was a big Rogue fan, and when NetHack started developing I was interested and got involved in the community. Players wanted to be able to write all or part of a defensive inscription while also mixing un/holy water into one of their potions, among other complex actions that were a huge pain in the butt to do using menu screens and hotkeys. So I floated my idea as a fix. They implemented a simplified version, and eventually found needs and reasons to build it up to a similar system.

Small world those BBS.

[Masque]

I could never get into Nethack, Rogue, or Crawl. Too esoteric for me, and I don't think there was even a way for my brain to even possibly figure out all the things that could be done using only the documentation provided by the game itself.

All the Angband variants, on the other hand, were right up my alley, and I dove into them and played them for years. Especially vanilla, Zangband, Z+band, Hengband, Steamband (wow that one was incredible in so many ways), and one of the best -- Sangband, which had a skill system.

I played many others regularly, but those were my favorites.

I never won. Not once. Not even close.

[permanent name]

Hack was probably my favorite overall. Good balance of complexity, play length, and most importantly graphics. Beautiful emerald greens and ASCII meadows, rendered in a way that actually made sense and could be seen rather than interpreted. Haven't seen any tilesets that come close.