The Many Ways To Die in Nethack

The GameSetWatch column '@Play' deals with the storied history of Rogue-like text adventures. This week, author John Harris discusses the many ways to die in Nethack. From the article: "The lowly cockatrice is perhaps the most dangerous monster in the game. There are plenty of monsters with more hit points, who do more damage, who have special attacks, and are just bigger, but cockatrices instantly kill anyone who touches them with their bare skin, and are thus very likely to kill players unwise in their dealings with them. Even Death up on Astral Plane has to succeed in an attack against a player to deliver an instakill, but a cockatrice can kill by being attacked. If the player attempts to fight a cockatrice without a weapon or wearing gloves and hits, he turns to stone. If he attempts to pick up a dead one with his bare hands, that will also turn him to stone. (It can also be wielded, however. Applications for a wielded cockatrice corpse are left for you to imagine, but I will say that it can be, hm, useful.)"

Late-breaking news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any word on when this new "nethack" game will be released?

My best character meets her demise

[edschurr]

So I was at a friend's house, and we were on seperate computers playing different games. My game was Nethack. I had been playing for maybe a month or two at a decent rate but had never gotten very far.

But this time was different; I was lucky. My Valkyrie found Excalibur, Mjollnir, Grey Dragon Scale Mail, was easily destroying everything in her path, and I finally got to go on my quest for the first time.

I entered the quest level, and ran straight into the lava.

My favorite death of all time...

[psxman]

nethacker, choked on a kitten

Names altered to protect the innocent, plus I forgot.

Re:Attention demands 27096 gold pieces. Pay? (yn)

[Anonymous Coward]

I've ascended nethack. I'm going to have the screenshot engraved on my tombstone.

Re:Attention demands 27096 gold pieces. Pay? (yn)

[slaker]

I ascended a wishless tourist once.
I consider it more of an accomplishment than my bachelor's degree.

Re:My favorite

[Scooter]

The one I always remember from my Nethack playing days at uni was also pet related. I had 3 pet dragons (Huey, Duey and Luey (sp?)) I also had a ring of teleport control (had eaten several leprechauns) and a magic whiste (to teleport my private fire breathing army).

My usual room clearance mode was teleport in, teleport the dragons in with the whistle, teleport out. I didn't do the last bit, the dragons attacked some nearby demons with fire, I got caught in the crossfire and the several tonnes of potions and scrolls I was carrying also went up, causing death by.... "thermonuclear explosion". :D

Another one that sticks in the mind even though it wasn't technically part of the game and was from the earlier plain "Hack" version, was my mate Dave, who edited his save file and was very pleased with himself for giving himself 32768 hit points. Until that is, he killed a bugbear, went up a level, gained 4 hp and died with -32764 hp. Killed by a signed integer :D