When it comes to roleplaying games I've always preferred Rogue-likes. Rogue being an old dungeon crawler with ASCII graphics but is yet strangely addictive. What makes NetHack so unique is that its content is so rich because it's taken most of its content and changes from its fan base. This is the gaming hallmark to the open source and GNU public license strategy. And now that hallmark game is available on the iPhone.


Gameplay

NetHack is a turn based roleplaying game. It's also a game that is over 20 years old and finds its home on many other computer platforms. Now it's available on the iTunes AppStore and since NetHack is part of the GNU Public License, it's required by law to be free. It's very faithful the Dungeons and Dragons style of gameplay of older western roleplaying games. The object of NetHack is to recover the Amulet of Yendor from the Wizard of Yendor located deep inside a perilous dungeon. Recovery just doesn't include attaining the amulet but also to offer it to the god of your alignment (lawful/neutral/chaotic). The completion of this quest is known as ascension and is a goal that many NetHack veterans have never reached.

NetHack is not a fast paced roleplaying game. For someone more accustomed to console games, it's tempting to rush through the dungeon as fast as possible fighting every monster in your way, drinking from any fountain or potion, and reading every scroll. This is one of the quickest ways to an early grave. While there are some moves that can be made quickly, decisions have to be carefully weighed. Equipment cannot be worn or wielded right away or risk succumbing to curses or other odd side effects.

NetHack has a ton of different ways to play. It starts with your character setup. You have tons of different character classes, different alignments, as well as a ton of different stats. A specific character class doesn't mean you have to play a certain way. You can hack and slash your way through every monster you can handle, but you can also sneak your way through the dungeon, or even have your pet fight your way through your enemies, healing it along the way. Still, ascension does require you to have some abilities to get you through some areas much easier. To that extent while you can play the early and mid-game in a wide variety of ways, the end game is much more uniform that you'd expect. But that's also when it starts to get interesting. Just when your character "normalizes" the game starts throwing different things at you from harder enemies, bosses, and even a series of puzzles. You literally do not know what's around the next corner or down the next staircase.

Despite the cautionary tales of how to play NetHack, that's not to say the loot in the dungeon isn't vast. There are tons of goodies hidden deep in the dungeon. There are some games like Diablo II which contain more loot, but it is definitely a great aspect to the game. While there's a lot of loot, there are also a host of enemies. You'll see just about every Dungeons and Dragons creature under the sun from kobolds to trolls and even demons and other nasty baddies. Some of these enemies are invisible, move faster than you, or can cast nasty spells.

One potential downside to NetHack is its difficulty and unforgiving nature. The acronyms YAAD (yet another annoying death) and DYWYPI (do you want your possessions identified) are commonplace on NetHack message boards detailing tales of woe from dying in one unexpected or annoying death after another. In NetHack, when you're dead, the game is over. It doesn't matter if you're turned to stone or if you were polymorphed into a gridbug or jackal deep in the dungeon; dead is dead and the game is over when that happens. Such an unforgiving game can be really annoying but it also makes ascension that much more rewarding. In the end, excessively hard and unforgiving games like this can make it easy to put the game down but the diversity of deaths makes for some great stories to tell along with the many other people who have their own tales of death and hours wasted by making one wrong move.

The gameplay of NetHack can be summed up with its sheer craziness. Take this common account as an example. You take down a cockatrice notorious for turning its foes to stone on a single touch. Making sure your hands are covered, you wield its corpse now against your foes, turning them to stone at will. However one wrong step and you fall down a pit. Upon landing the cockatrice corpse you're wielding falls on you and you're turned to stone. You die. Do you want your possessions identified?


Controls

The controls were always a sticky point in Rogue-like games. Each action is accompanied by a corresponding key on the keyboard. With this version of NetHack, you don't have to worry about which key on a keyboard to press. Instead movement is handled by touching one of the 9 quadrants on the screen to indicate which way you want to move. Actions can be performed by selecting categories of actions in submenus and dials. The same actions have an alternate method of execution through gestures. Gestures are lines drawn on the screen where the different patterns correspond to different actions. Most of the gestures were logically chosen, however some are quite complicated. Having the menus and dials as an alternate option is nice because for the least common actions you can rely on selecting them from a submenu rather than trying to remember a complicated gesture. For more common actions like searching or kicking open a door, the gesture is simple and easily memorized. So overall this was a very clever way of making the controls accessible and thus making the game a little easier to pick up for more casual gamers.


Graphics

The graphics are about as simplistic as it gets. The graphics are ASCII based. Your player is represented by a '@' symbol. Monsters and other dungeon relics are represented by other characters on your keyboard. Even the dungeon walls are represented by '#' symbols. There are no real animations since the game is turn based, however different colors are used to quickly identify what an object is aside from its character symbol. This is the typical graphical scheme of other Rogue-like games and generally accepted. You also have the option to change these ASCII characters into graphical tiles. There are roughly a dozen or so tile sets to choose from where you can easily zoom in and out. However like the ASCII character sets; the graphical tiles do not contain any animation either.


Sound

There isn't much to say in this section. There's no music, and no sound effects. The only thing that passes for a sound effect is the built-in clicking sound when choosing a selection using the iPhone's dial or keyboard press. Some canned sound effects might have been a nice addition or at least the ability to play music from your device in the game. Still, this is par for the course for a typical Rogue-like game.


Replay Value

Most roleplaying games have a problem with replay value. The reasons for this are many: the story is already revealed, there's little variation between playing through it a second time, or it takes so long just to play through it that it doesn't seem worth it. NetHack solves this problem by being so unforgiving. In some games you could be dead within a half hour. Other games you might have invested days or even weeks only to meet your untimely demise before you can ascend. Each game plays out in a very unique way whether you vary your character class or play with the same character each time. Since NetHack is such a different experience for each game you play, the replay value is through the roof. When you combine that with some very solid gameplay and some very different ways to play the same game and even the same character class, this could easily be the last roleplaying game you ever play and for some that's simply the case.

Overall NetHack might be one of if not the best RPG of all time. Having it on the iPhone only makes the platform that much better. This implementation works really well for the iPhone platform too. If the depth of the gameplay and vast replay value doesn't have you sold yet, you can't beat the free price point on the AppStore. For that reason alone, I can't help but recommend this game for any roleplaying game fan who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Recommended: Yes