[Announce] RevivedHack 1.5

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.announce,rec.games.roguelike.misc,rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

I uploaded RevivedHack version 1.5 for Windows to my web site today.

Game description and screenshot:

http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/RevivedHack.htm

Download:

http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/Download.htm



For this release I fixed a bug that caused door Mimics to display
improperly when hiding on a secret door. This bug did not affect
gameplay
aside from revealing the location of secret doors on very rare
occasions.
There were other very minor bugfixes that are not worth mentioning
here.

To enhance the gameplay a little RevivedHack now highlights changes to
the status line.

Finally, I added a graphical crossfade effect when changing levels,
and optimized the graphics routines.



One a somewhat unrelated note:

Some time ago I wrote a patch for NetHack that changes its Windows
console interface to one resembling RevivedHack 1.4/1.5. The patch is
applied by extracting it into the NetHack source directory, and
compiled by clicking on two batch files. No files are overwritten or
changed. It was written specifically to compile with MinGW (freely
available), and may work with future versions of NetHack (after 3.43).
It's not currently available for download, but if anyone is interested
in trying it out, contact me at the address on my web site, and I will
email it. It's in a very small zip file.

I also made a bootable floppy disk version of NetHack, with its own
operating system (FreeDOS). There's enough room on the disk for an
automatically compressed saved game, and no files are written to hard
disk (and no hard disk is required). It requires a 386 or better
processor, and 32 MB of memory.

Download it here:

http://members.kos.net/mlehotay/nhboot.zip

Thanks to Michael Lehotay for hosting the file.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc,rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In news:<30f8ec6b.0409071714.3e9b582@posting.google.com>, Donnie Russell
<drussell@wotmania.com> says...
> I uploaded RevivedHack version 1.5 for Windows to my web site today.

Great stuff!

> Game description and screenshot:
> http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/RevivedHack.htm

Some possible nitpicking...

From the web page:
"The name probably comes from the fact that it was a "hacked" Rogue."

In those days we (for some value of 'we') used to call any program a
hack. Especially something small that was put together quickly, but also
the opposite, ie large and laborious programming projects. 'Hacking' was
the act of producing hacks/programs, perhaps the origin has to do with
'hacking' on the keys of the keyboard (totally uneducated guesswork by
me). I think the use of 'hack' in the meaning of 'modified' (like it
seems that you mean) is almost, but not quite, as old.

I see that Jey Fenlason has used a number of hack@[...] addresses over
the years. Perhaps (farfetched theory upcoming) this was a nickname of
his before the program, and he named it after himself? Of course one
could probably just mail and ask him, or maybe you have already done
that and have backed up the sentence I quote above.

Reference: http://web.bilkent.edu.tr/Online/Jargon30/JARGON_H/HACK.HTML

Ending the nitpicking section and moving on to ponderings even less on
the subject of your post...

I notice your WoT-related address, and earlier I have noted that Kate
Nepveu is not only a great contributor/collector/publicist of Nethack
spoilers but also mirror keeper of the WoTFAQ. Myself, rasfw and rgrn
are the only Usenet groups I follow regularly. Perhaps natural
coincidences due to WoT-fans being numerous and Nethack fans not
extremely uncommon, and both having some kind of common 'fantasy world'
roots. I wonder perhaps if the devious plots thrown at the readers by RJ
attracts a similar type of mental masochists to those that are drawn to
the likewise complex adventuring in the dungones of merciless devteam.
(Was that last sentence even readable? I take cover behind the fact that
English certainly is not my first language.)

/Kristoffer

--
This cookie has a scrap of paper inside. It reads:
Gurl fnl gung xvpxvat n inyhnoyr trz qbrfa'g frrz gb znxr frafr.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc,rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Kristoffer Björkman <kristoffer.bjorkman@frontnet.org> wrote in message news:<MPG.1baa7f6ae8afdc97989689@130.133.1.4>...
> In news:<30f8ec6b.0409071714.3e9b582@posting.google.com>, Donnie Russell
> <drussell@wotmania.com> says...
> > I uploaded RevivedHack version 1.5 for Windows to my web site today.
>
> Great stuff!
>
> > Game description and screenshot:
> > http://www.freewebs.com/drussell/RevivedHack.htm
>
> Some possible nitpicking...
>
> From the web page:
> "The name probably comes from the fact that it was a "hacked" Rogue."
>
> In those days we (for some value of 'we') used to call any program a
> hack. Especially something small that was put together quickly, but also
> the opposite, ie large and laborious programming projects. 'Hacking' was
> the act of producing hacks/programs, perhaps the origin has to do with
> 'hacking' on the keys of the keyboard (totally uneducated guesswork by
> me). I think the use of 'hack' in the meaning of 'modified' (like it
> seems that you mean) is almost, but not quite, as old.

I'm not really sure what I meant by "hacked" in that context. The
complexity of the term makes it really hard to pin down Jay's original
meaning. Hack is not a literally modified version of Rogue, like
URogue for example. It's original code inspired by Rogue; I can
understand Jay's motivation for doing this since I wrote an incomplete
Rogue-inspired game myself for the Commodore 64 in the 1980's.

> I see that Jey Fenlason has used a number of hack@[...] addresses over
> the years. Perhaps (farfetched theory upcoming) this was a nickname of
> his before the program, and he named it after himself? Of course one
> could probably just mail and ask him, or maybe you have already done
> that and have backed up the sentence I quote above.

I've never contacted him, but if I knew his email address I would
certainly like to see what he thought of my project. I would be very
interested in porting his original version as well.

> I notice your WoT-related address, and earlier I have noted that Kate
> Nepveu is not only a great contributor/collector/publicist of Nethack
> spoilers but also mirror keeper of the WoTFAQ. Myself, rasfw and rgrn
> are the only Usenet groups I follow regularly. Perhaps natural
> coincidences due to WoT-fans being numerous and Nethack fans not
> extremely uncommon, and both having some kind of common 'fantasy world'
> roots. I wonder perhaps if the devious plots thrown at the readers by RJ
> attracts a similar type of mental masochists to those that are drawn to
> the likewise complex adventuring in the dungones of merciless devteam.
> (Was that last sentence even readable? I take cover behind the fact that
> English certainly is not my first language.)

I'm not sure how to classify the typical WoT reader; they're a very
broad class, I think. I had never read any book like it when I picked
up the first installment in the early 90's as I was starting college.
I'm mostly a reader of literature these days, but I still follow a few
of the more interesting writers I got hooked on years ago.

There probably is something to the idea that the same people who are
attracted to complex, sprawling imaginary worlds in a work of fiction
would also be interested in a computer game fitting the same
description.

My interest in Roguelike games is mostly from a programming
perspective, but I still find Rogue and Hack to be two of the most
enjoyable games I have ever played.

---Donnie