Posted 11/07/08 at 02:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Here we go again!  In honor of devnull's yearly tournament for the still-popular ASCII dungeon romp NetHack, we're taking a look at the five greatest modifications to this ancient classic.  But in case you've never even heard of NetHack before, here's the deal: it started out as an ASCII-based dungeon exploration game that, in many ways, has become a precursor to all sorts of genre-busters.  Even to this day, games like Fable II have borrowed from some of NetHack's better features (a travelling animal companion, in this case). 

The game's dungeons are randomly generated each time you play. You can master the nuances and inventory management skills of NetHack, but there's always that little chance that the next step you take could spell you death in any number of creative ways--in fact, finding all the possible ways to die is a near-impossible task in itself, a fun little challenge for yourself in case you get tired of trying to "ascend," the term used for beating the game.

Strap on your adventuring sword and join us after the jump for the top 5 NetHack... hacks!

Read More