Don’t think I’ve heard of this one before, my first blind run went about how you’d expect.
I thought I’d look to see what it’d be like to try and play without a 10key numpad, and what the fuck
y k u
\ | /
h -.- l
/ | \
b j n
that is insane
yes I know, other keys are reserved for existing actions… but god damn that is bonkers.
those are vi keys. those keys were chosen because popular terminals at the time (late 70s) used hjkl for navigation and usually had arrows printed on the side of the key.
I loathe vi, and consider its persistence over the decades to be part of why software and UI design is so poor today. You end up with a hard split in a lot of software where the common interface is one magic “DO EVERYTHING!” button rendered in javascript in an electron instance that maxes out 4 cores for some reason, and the “Poweruser” interface is deranged command line and vi key nonsense that no sane human would bother to learn.
That said vi and its interface were a massive improvement over the state of the art at the time, and are important to roguelike history. vi was the first real WYSIWYG text editor.
Bill Joy copied the rendering code of vi to create the curses library. Which was revolutionary in that it enabled unix programs to address a specific character location on the screen, rather than just acting like a “glass typewriter”.
He then worked on an early “killer app” for curses which you may have heard of, called Rogue. Which also used the vi-standard hjkl navigation.
Those controls were then inherited by clones of Rogue like Hack, later known as Nethack.
Well damn
I’ve been using vi (well, vim) for 30-ish years by this point and the way they drew that layout it just did not click at all with the h j k l
keys.
I was looking at y k u
and just couldn’t grok it
For the record, I totally understand the “I loathe vi” sentiment, and think anyone that does stuff like turning on “vi mode” in a modern IDE is a lunatic.
…but on a remote shell, or to edit a commit message in terminal, etc – I’ll still default to vim. It’s habit at this point, rather than “its better”.
I guess you didn’t need the full spiel then.
But I think it gets lost sometimes how Rogue, Nethack and the like are intimately tied into the history of computers and were often right at the bleeding edge.
I use neovim as my main text editor lol. It’s a little cursed, but macro recording and having multiple clipboards are both pretty huge, and setting up linters and debuggers is easy now.
I had just launched this on my laptop myself and had to quit cause I couldn’t figure out how to move I’ll try again on my desktop.
Movement tips: Ctrl + vi key direction will move in a direction until you see a monster or cannot go further. Numpad 5 then a numpad direction does similar. Underscore opens the autotravel menu: hitting x will cycle unexplored but seen tiles, o will cycle items on the floor, direction keys will free move a cursor for the fast travel point, and hitting the key corresponding to a dungeon feature like > or < will cycle through them. Period will confirm and route you to it using A* until you become hungry or see a monster or etc. If that happens and you get interrupted and want to resume, underscore will open the menu again with the last fast travel square already selected.
These two in tandem are all but necessary for safely traversing without getting bored and dying yasd, as holding a direction down is by far the easiest way to lose a run. Get in the habbit of using these admittedly byzantine movement options for any movement you do outside of sokoban
I got it compiled on my desktop, but haven’t had much time to play. I’m enjoying reading about everyone’s experiences!
I’ve had another good session. This time I got to experience Orctown, the desolate orc-conquered version of Minetown. The tell is that the orcs in the town (and other orcs after going to the town) frequently have cool names like “Aothaithos of Akhogulu.” The bad part is that I don’t have as many shops to interact with (sell stuff, talk to a priest, stuff like that).
I got a luckstone and am now in Sokoban. RIP Espio my pet bat.
Run I’m currently on hit non orc town mine town for the first time since I started playing again on the 1st. I have had absolutely dismal luck lol
I was doing well until I ran into a mastodon on a wide-open level. Even with good, low AC (for being pre-wish) and regeneration, it eviscerated me.
I ran across the map very confused the whole time and the game told me I was a troglodyte, so it was more or less just like League of Legends.
@Herb That’s a quintessential first experience.
Decided to try what RNG gave me - a wizard. (Spellcasters are not my preferred class, as they take more patience than I’m known to play the game with.) Within the first two levels, I find a wand of wishing.
After a blessed scroll of charging, I get four wishes. After refreshing myself in the NethackWiki on what the early options are, I go for the following:
- blessed greased +2 silver dragon scale mail (reflection, complements Wizard’s cloak of magic resistance)
- The Master Key of Thievery (chaotic artifact, halves damage in addition to a couple of other effects)
- blessed fireproof +2 speed boots (gotta go fast)
- blessed amulet of lifesaving (because otherwise I know I’m going to goof it up)
Anyway, I better not mess this up.
Holy smokes.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust. (Francis Bacon)
Fuck. I fell in a pit. The pit was poisoned. Guess what resistance I didn’t have yet? Poison.
In my very next game, I have found the bones file of Sidney the Wizard. I survived the fall into the pit and tried collecting what I could. I wasn’t aligned for the artifact key, the boots and cloak were cursed, and the amulet of lifesaving was long gone, but the silver dragon scale mail was still there and still blessed.
That has led to my first polymorph this month of play, thanks to a trap. Fun fact: when wearing dragon scale mail, any polymorph turns you into a dragon of that color. And you can #sit to make eggs, which hatch into dragon pets.
I am WISH the silver dragon!
I keep telling myself I’m going to play Nethack when my current Caves of Qud character dies. But then I just reroll another character and go again.