Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games
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In 1980, computers were instruments of science and mathematics, military secrets and academia. Stern administrators lorded over sterile university laboratories and stressed one point to the wide-eyed students privileged enough to set foot within them: Computers were not toys.
Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic, and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-the-art 3-D graphics.
Despite their visual simplicity, roguelike games captivate thousands of players around the world. From the author of the best-selling Stay Awhile and Listen series, Dungeon Hacks introduces you to the visionaries behind some of the most popular roguelikes of all time and shows how their creations paved the way for the blockbuster video games of today – and beyond.
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8 reviews for Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games
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Brock Jones –
I didn’t have another experience like this for many years
I consider myself a very informed games enthusiast. My taste in games may fluctuate over time but my appetite for gaming history has always remained a constant. My first experience with a truly eye-opening gaming history book came in the form of David Sheff’s Game Over. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another experience like this for many years; where the reader felt so close to the source. Jacked by David Kushner came close to the same style but this time the source material just didnât seem quite as interesting to me. Then along came Console Wars by Blake Harris, which once again offered up an intimate look at arguably one of the most exciting times in console history.This brings me to Dungeon H@cks, which I am comparing to what I consider to be the greatest books about gaming history. Not because I feel that is has such a broad appeal. Quite the contrary. What I feel Dungeon H@cks brings to the table is the same kind of storytelling as the aforementioned books. You feel more of an involvement instead of this general sense of this action was taken and this is the outcome. This is precisely why I usually donât enjoy entire histories of the games industry. Itâs more like reading an actual history book; there is little if any enjoyment to be had, only hard facts. When the author can take you into the minds of the men and women making decisions that brought us to where we are today, that is what excites me!I have to thank the publisher for offering up the first two chapters for free. I was hooked by the end of the preview and I donât even enjoy rouge-likes as a genre of gaming. It was just the style of writing and the way the story was presented that got me. I feel like the previous reviewer hit the book rather negatively over what I see as arbitrary things. Granted, I did purchase the Kindle edition so I can understand their dismay at the price differential. I discovered the book through USGamer.net, which explains how someone like me discovered a book such as this.I really enjoyed Dungeon H@cks! If a story of how some burgeoning programmers pioneered a new genre of gaming largely based off working within the technical limitations of the hardware at that time sounds interesting to you; youâre in for a real treat.
Jefferson J. Thacker –
Fascinating Look at Gaming History
My interest in Roguelikes varies, but I’ve always appreciated the genre and what it has contributed to computer gaming. However, reading the history of the genre has been fascinating, especially as it mirrors the progression of Table-Top RPGs, such as Dungeons & Dragons, because that is really where my passion lies.The research that has been done on this book is top. I’ve since tried to find out even more information from many of the topics covered only to find that David Craddock’s work stands alone, as most of it had not been documented until this point. I can only imagine the interviews conducted to write this book.I had to take points off due to some concerns with the organization of the book. I’m reading the digital version, so the ‘Side-Quests’ are annoying to flip to and from. I would rather this sort of info had been integrated into the chapters or at the ends of them. (I’ve heard that they appear at the end of the chapters in the printed version, which seems appropriate.)
Randell Jesup –
Excellent overview of the largely-unknown history of Rogue, Hack, Moria, Angband, etc – and the personalities that led to it.
Excellent overview of the largely-unknown history of Rogue, Hack, Moria, Angband, etc – and the personalities that led to it.The author tracked down the people who created all these, and included a lot of details of how these happened, and the environment which led them to do what they did. It includes much of the more recent history, but focuses primarily on the “original” character-based roguelikes and how they’ve evolved, not modern graphical games within the same general genre (of which you can find many on Steam and elsewhere). A few get shorter coverage (like Larn), perhaps due to less access to the creators.I’d hacked on Nethack and others, and played Rogue, Hack, Nethack, Moria, Larn (and before that Zork/Adventure/etc on minicomputers/mainframes). I worked on porting Nethack to the Amiga 1000 with a bunch of people from SAS Institute (it was too big to fit in a 512K Amiga, quite). Never really got into Angband – lack of time. Most of this history is totally new to me, and quite interesting.One thing the author missed, apparently, is that there’s a yearly Nethack tournament on the internet at nethack.devnull.net, beginning on midnight on Halloween each year (and it also provides a shared location for playing nethack, with leaderboards and shared ‘bones’ files). This is the oldest continuously-running game tournament on the Internet, apparently.
John –
David’s writing style is efficient and he doesn’t spend time over-inflating details with unnecessary adjectives or fluffy opinio
Although very much a niche topic of interest — the subject matter is interesting for any enthusiasts of computers, games, development and/or programming.David’s writing style is efficient and he doesn’t spend time over-inflating details with unnecessary adjectives or fluffy opinion-based statements.It is also a very quick read — I managed to devour it in a few short sessions.My one complaint is that the jacket doesn’t have the best design. People who saw me reading it on the subway probably thought I was reading a knock-off fantasy book written for pre-teens. A more minimalist cover would probably help lend to an easier way to hit target audiences.
mark m. –
Great book for those interested in roguelikes
Great book for those interested in roguelikes. It would be impossible, but I wish it had gone into more depth on play strategies and other more modern roguelikes. I won’t count off for this because it wasn’t in the scope of the book. Overall, it’s an enjoyable read.I wish there were a book like this about Dwarf Fortress.
Jared Blankenship –
NetHack, Angband, ADOM…if you understand those titles, this is the book for you!
NetHack pulled me into the roguelike world back in 2007, and I’ve been hooked ever since. If you love the roguelike genre, this is an excellent historical perspective, by both the author and the many pioneers of the genre, of how everything started and, perhaps most importantly, why it all started. NetHack, Angband, ADOM, and the hundreds of others, this is a good view of the beginning. Perfect for the roguelike fan!
Samildanach Emrys –
Generally a good, informative read which doesn’t cover every single facet in minute detail but approaches the subject matter in the same sort of way as a good medium-weight history book – there’s detail but not an overwhelming amount, while the writing style is almost conversational.In some ways it feels more like journalism. The sources are understandably mainly interviews, and some of the wording has a journalistic feel – a lot “[person] told me” and “[person] mentioned during our conversation”. Although the relatively casual writing style does make the book far more accessible than it could have been (this is a subject which could easily be made quite dry), it also adds a slightly amateurish feel to proceedings which doesn’t always work in the book’s favour.Adding to this hint of sub-professionalism are numerous spelling and grammatical errors, typos and other gaffs which should have been picked up by any half-competent proofreader. The first two or three slip by easily enough – even the most polished tomes have some errors – but they begin mounting up. These little errors occur frequently enough that the book begins to feel like it hasn’t been proofread at all, which starts to give it the feel of a published blog rather than a professionally written volume.In particular, Chapter 9 (on Ancient Domains of Mystery) reads like a first draft. Errant punctuation, misplaced words and, worst of all, a failure to spell the name of the game’s world correctly even once, make this chapter a striking low point in a book which is otherwise flawed but respectable.Having said that, the niggling goofs and slightly over-casual style don’t completely ruin the book. The shambolic Chapter 9 comes close to being too much, but the sloppiness of that chapter aside, Craddock has clearly done his homework. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to reach individuals who seldom speak about their roguelike involvement, and the insight granted by the wealth of information makes up for other deficiencies. I have to dock one star for that one ghastly chapter, but otherwise it’s a solid effort.
Graspee –
I was looking forward to this book as I believe it is the first book to be published in paper format that deals with roguelikes. I have always wanted a “real” book about my favourite game genre.Reading the book however, it is immediately obvious that it has not been proofread:”artic tundra’s” – an unnecessary apostrophe in a simple plural”inferred” used when it should have been “implied””importing” instead of “imparting” — it’s in a quote from someone so it could be their error but in that case it should have a (sic). It’s more likely a mistake of transcription.These mistakes and more stand out at me and really spoil my enjoyment of the text. It would be jarring enough in an online forum or blog post, but when they occur in a book it immediately drags the book down from “real book” status to vanity publishing fake. Real books are proofread.The second thing wrong with the book is the concept of “Side Quests”. These are small snippets of text, one or two paragraphs in length that are digressions or deeper explanations of things in the chapter. They amount, basically, to lengthy footnotes. Unlike the electronic version of the book there is no reference to the Side Quests in the main chapter like a footnote number you can look up at that point, they just follow the chapter they belong to.The Side Quest format just doesn’t work. The book is short enough as it is, so I don’t see anyone skipping these “optional” pieces of text. Apparently in the electronic edition there are [SQ] markers in the main text that link to the Side Quest texts. I wonder why they didn’t just add text like [SQ1- p34] into the text. In this book version you will basically be reading the chapter and continually looking up the footnotes (yes it has actual footnotes too) and then a fragmented series of extra bits. The overall effect is that the author couldn’t work this content into the rest of the chapter so you can do his job for him of assembling all the content: main chapter, footnotes and “Side Quests” into a coherent narrative.The third annoying thing about the book is a missing chapter. On the author’s blog he talks about the writing of this book and how material he gathered to make one chapter, in which he followed 7 Day Roguelike participants around got out of hand and so was spun off into its own book. He says on his blog that there is a bonus chapter in this book (Dungeon Hacks) following one of the 7DRL entrants for the whole week. This bonus chapter is nowhere to be found in the paper version, meaning the paper version has less content than the electronic version, despite costing three times as much.I am massively disappointed with this book and cannot recommend it.