Going Rogue

August 16, 2015 11:18 AM

Fenlason dubbed his clone Hack for two reasons: "One definition was 'a quick [computer] hack because I don't have access to Rogue'. The other was 'hack-n-slash', a reference to one of the styles of playing Dungeons and Dragons." - A chapter long excerpt from David Craddock's Dungeon Hacks, a new book on the history of the Roguelike RPG.
posted by Artw (19 comments total)

I have an interview in this book.
posted by JHarris at 11:28 AM on August 16, 2015 [29 favorites]

/wonders idly how many NeFites will turn out to have interviews in the book.
posted by Artw at 11:35 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

I should say I'm actually a bit embarrassed by the interview. It was conducted via email some time back and I wrote my responses at high speed and send them quickly so I could move on to something else. He sent me a draft a couple of months ago and when I read it I was was mortified that I had so many spelling and grammar mistakes, because I really did write it at full sprint. I sent him back a message saying I'd like to edit my responses to make 'em more readable, and he kindly said sure, and then I completely forgot to do that. SIGH.
posted by JHarris at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

I will make a note to tut when I get to it.

(There is some shit out there in email interviews I have conducted at speed, oh yes there is... And you guys probably thought my comments were bad enough.)
posted by Artw at 12:00 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]

Interview with the author on Roguelike Radio.

Apparently material covering one of the old 7DRLs got spun out into its own eBook, but I don't have a link for that as I'm a) on mobile and b) lazy like a fox.
posted by comealongpole at 12:13 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

All my interviews are conducted through a Simulacrum.
posted by clavdivs at 12:19 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

Giant Bomb's Austin Walker has an interview with the author as well.
posted by kmz at 12:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Interviews are tricky things. Each one is randomly generated, and if you fail you lose everything.
posted by naju at 12:54 PM on August 16, 2015 [26 favorites]

There is much debate over whether they should be ASCII only or some fancy multimedia thing.
posted by Artw at 12:59 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

hack was an amazing game and a huge discovery for me - that was when computer games really bit me. So much cleverness, creativity, and humor... such an amazing vision of potential. Thanks fer the post and I look forward to reading the book.
posted by emmet at 1:01 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Pepsi Blue Potion.
posted by Artw at 1:23 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

My female elf ranger is languishing in another window as I type this. She is having a difficult but not unproductive game. She beckons me...
posted by jim in austin at 1:43 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

So just today I was running screen (as you do) and tried to switch to another screen window only I only had a single one. The error message I get for this is You cannot escape from window 0!. Which is basically a nethack joke. In fact, all the error messages in screen are nethack jokes.

I was reflecting on how it's pretty bold for screen to have error messages that are cryptic jokes referencing a 28 year old game. Doing my research to post about it hereI learned this is a years-old easter egg in GNU screen which only shows up if screen thinks you play nethack. It even got a bug filed and resolved in Debian back in 2007.

screen's behavior is triggered by having NETHACKOPTIONS in your shell environment. I've had one in my shell environment for 20+ years and proudly carry it along.
NETHACKOPTIONS='dogname:Toto,catname:Aleister,time,nopickup,fruit:box of tofu

Sometimes being old is fun.
posted by Nelson at 5:19 PM on August 16, 2015 [15 favorites]

Dangit, now you just convinced me to waste the day playing brogue again!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I just picked up Pixel Dungeon on iOS which is pretty fun and Brogue-like.
posted by Artw at 6:09 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

I haven't bought the book yet, but the interview with Austin Walker over at Giant Bomb was plenty interesting enough to get me to put it on my amazon wishlist.

My latest rogue-y obsession is Cogmind, which is all Metafilter's fault.
posted by sparkletone at 8:01 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Huh, so this is weird. Until very recently, Jay Fenlason worked in my office, on stuff tangentially related to what I work on.

Of course he actually goes by "Hack".
posted by atbash at 11:45 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]

atbash

Eponysterical?
posted by Artw at 12:27 PM on August 17, 2015

I think your points and your enthusiasm come over just fine, JHarris.
posted by Artw at 9:12 AM on August 21, 2015