ssh nethack@hardfought.org… what does that mean exactly? It’s how you’d connect to Hardfought’s new NetHack game server using your preferred terminal. Yes, we have a game server again, and this time I’m hosting one of my all-time favorite games.

Details – the NetHack game server is being ran off of the same box that powers the website (see last news post right before this one). The resources needed to power such a server are orders of magnitude lower than what are needed to power an FPS-based game server such as what we’ve done in the past. Logging into the server using the credentials above starts dgamelaunch, which in turns allows you to register an account, and then gives you options to play several different variants that are being hosted. Current variants are:

• NetHack 3.4.3 (NAO version)
• NetHack 3.6.1-dev (bleeding edge, will be updated regularly)
• GruntHack 0.2.0 (various bugs fixed and some new functionality added vs. original)
• UnNetHack 5.3.1

More variants will be added soon, most notably NetHack 3.6.0 (stable), Fourk and FIQHack. You can view dumplogs, ttyrecs and player configs by going to the /userdata folder on this site. Games played are also tracked by the NetHack Scoreboard, and the server has just recently been approved for use in this years upcoming Junethack tournament.

Special note concerning GruntHack – I love this variant, I’ve been hooked on it since the Junethack tourney from last year. It’s a lot harder than vanilla NetHack, and the changes to the game are just *fun*. Unfortunately, this variant had all but been abandoned by the original author – they still host a server for it, but there haven’t been any updates in nearly five years, and there are some serious show-stopping bugs. The version I’m hosting has fixed the two biggest bugs (the spit/splash venom bug and the vibrating square portal being drawn off the map) that would cause a fatal crash. It also includes some added functionality vs. the original, such as hilite object piles/covered stairs option, custom monstercolors and autoopen doors. More to follow on this bit in the near future.

NONE of this would have been possible without the help from my friends from #teamsplat – specifically Tangles, our resident master programmer and bug-fixing guru, who showed me how to put all of this together and get it running. Also jonadab, who has provided extra content to our GruntHack variant, and elenmirie, raisse, Mandevil and oh6 who have play-tested and provided much-needed feedback and insights. Shout out also to Elronnd, kerio, dtype (who made the nao-server build available), FIQ and others in the community for their help and suggestions.

Come and play! All are welcome to join us in channel #hardfought on freenode.net, best place to find us should you have any questions/issues or just want to hang out and chat. See ya there.