Hack 1.01: Won!

My final anchor save was at the start of level 25.

Level 25

• $10,234, AC -5, Str 18/98, Exp 13
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +5 splint mail, +3 shield, 30 +0 arrows
• Ring of poison resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of digging, 2 wands of fire
  
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation, potion of object detection
  
• 2 scrolls of remove curse, scroll of genocide
• 12 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

Finally - I killed a demon! Shortly after this feat, a trapdoor dumped me down to level 26, where my luck didn't quite repeat itself - a xan pricked me, forcing me to juggle around my inventory to be combat effective again, and as I did this, two demons spawned on either side of me. I beat them - barely - and the xan, presumably laughing its thorax off, pricked me again and finished me off.

Attempt 2:

A solo demon went down without too much trouble yet again. I decided to press my luck and keep descending without saving or exploring the levels.

On level 26, I found a wand that turned out to be a wand of polymorph! I struggled to find the exit, and wasted a bunch of wand of digging charges looking for it. But eventually I found the stairs - hidden underneath a small pile of gems that I couldn't lift.

On level 27, the maze, I drank my potion of object detection.

Up in the right-hand corner - an amulet! Could it be?

Monster detection showed what I was in for:

No demons - yet anyway.

Sadly, my wand of digging only had one charge, so I had to explore the majority of the maze before finding the amulet. There's a lot of stuff in here too - some of the stuff that occurred:

• A scroll of enchant armor vaporized my already over-enchanted splint mail. Thankfully, I found some more splint mail soon after, but still, this was a blow.
• A scroll of enchant weapon finally upgraded my sword a bit.
  
• I found a wand of sleep, though for the time being I used my wand of fire to deal with the tougher monsters.
• A nymph stole my ring of +2 damage.
  
• Multiple teleport traps took me in weird directions and I am pretty sure I skipped some of the maze this way. One boulder got teleported this way too.
• I discovered that with my ring of poison resistance, I could eat poisonous corpses.

 

Eventually, I made my way to the amulet's location.

 

 

Well, damn. What do I do? Polymorphing the boulder didn't work, and I was out of digging charges. Nothing I tried worked, not even stripping down, dropping everything and squeezing through, which the wiki said works in Nethack. So I quit and reloaded back to level 25.

Attempt 3:

The random maze generator was on my side as I quickly descended to the maze on level 27.

Seeing dragons with my potion of monster detection, I genocided them right away, and dealt with a handful of weak monsters as I mapped out enough maze to get to the amulet, and also picked up a normal helmet along the way. Sure enough, it was underneath a boulder again.

This time I was prepared with a mostly full wand of digging. I moved around to the north, dug south, and pushed.

Yes! Except - immediately after taking it, a boulder fell on my head.

Great, but what if I hadn't found one at the last moment?

I made my way back to the surface, using the rest of the charges on the wand of digging to create shortcuts as much as possible - why take chances now? I didn't stop to fight, I didn't bother picking up any valuables from my stash - I just kept going. Nothing particularly noteworthy happened as I climbed up the 27 staircases to freedom.

Nor after it, really.

 

GAB rating: Above average. This already feels a lot more like a Nethack prototype than Fenlason's Hack, which was basically Rogue with more stuff in it, though the seeds of Nethack's persistent levels and complex gameplay were already planted. Where I reached the end of Fenlason's Hack feeling like I saw just about everything, I finished Brouwer's feeling like I could keep playing for months and still not discover all of its depths.

But Brouwers' Hack, at least at this version, feels unfair. Granted, Rogue wasn't fair, but Rogue was simple enough that you could play fairly quickly and get enjoyment out of launching a new game and seeing how deep you can get before you die. Hack is slower, more complex, and you really don't want to die and start over, which makes it all the more frustrating when you do and feel like there wasn't anything you could have done about it.

Maybe I'm the one being unfair. After all, I openly savescummed - perhaps I just never learned to play properly. Maybe if you don't have that crutch, you learn how to get out of jams or avoid them altogether. That's how Nethack is supposed to work, as I understand it. But Brouwer's Hack just feels disinclined to give you things - I didn't even find a store until I was 19 levels deep - and then you die because you didn't have stuff. Starvation was a big problem early on, putting you at the mercy of the dungeon generator's willingness to spawn edible food and/or nutritious corpses, and throughout the whole run it really felt like so many of Hack's monsters can only be out-muscled or beaten/evaded with very specific magic toys, and if the game spawns something you aren't equipped to fight or flee from, you die. Starvation wasn't nearly as big a problem in Fenlason's where you can buy food, and although combat was unforgiving, Fenlason's Hack was far more generous with strength-boosting and level-boosting opportunities and magic tricks, and magic seemed more effective in general as well (e.g. scrolls of confusion actually worked).

Interestingly, there are a number of features in Fenlason's Hack that did not make their way to Hack 1.01. I should re-iterate that what I played, "hack121," is not completely authentic; Fenlason's original is lost, and we just have it on NetHack Wiki's word that the "hack121" DOS port, which may have been compiled as late as 2001, is as close as we'll get.

• A shop at the beginning of the game where you can buy starting gear, including cheap food. If nothing else, this greatly eases the initial problem of hunger.
• Torches and lanterns, which you must keep lit with oil and tinderboxes or be effectively blind, as in Moria.
• Mirror items for defeating cockatrices
• Cross items, though I never found out their purpose
  
• Commands to view items in the room, to query your weight carried/limit, and hunger levels.
• Magic detection of monsters/gold/objects persists. In Hack 1.01 the effect goes away as soon as you make a move.
• Multi-use scrolls.
  
• Rooms painted in strange, mood-affecting colors. I could not figure out what gameplay purpose they serve.
• Rooms with flammable gas traps and rooms with crushing wall traps.
  
• A whole assortment of monsters that I never saw any equivalent of in Hack 1.01, like pickpockets, ghosts, floor fiends, guards, arguses, and energars.
• Non-permanent strength-draining effects
• An endgame where guards infinispawn after you collect the magic orb until you escape the dungeon or die.

 

Brouwer's Hack has too many new features to list, but the biggest are class selection, the pet dog, and necrophagia. But that there are so many mutually exclusive features makes me further question just how accurate hack121 is to the original. Were these features removed by Brouwer? Were they added into hack121 later? Maybe Brower's Hack was based on an incomplete build? Or maybe Kneller's DOS port is missing more than he admits? I may never know, but I think I will be revisiting Hack in the years to come.

Hack 1.01: Kick the dog

Level 20

• $6,243, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 11
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 11 food rations
• Four unidentified scrolls

 

Attempt 1:

Almost immediately, a dragon snuck up on me while exploring a corridor.

Uh-oh. Time to use one of those unidentified scrolls!

And here we have one of the unexpected advantages of savescumming. Now, whenever I reload a saved game, I'll know I have an extremely rare scroll of genocide. I can save it for when I really need it, and until then, act knowing that I have this option. But right now, I need it, so I invoke 'D.'

The rest of the level gave me no trouble, except that the exit completely eluded me. Unable to find any secret doors, I wasted all of my wand of digging's charges trying to find the exit, to no avail. After that, I quaffed a potion of monster detection, and it revealed orcs in a part of the level I hadn't explored yet - this let me focus on where to search for hidden doors, and eventually I found it and the orc-guarded exit. I did not make a save.

On level 21, I encountered a new enemy, demons, represented by an '&' sign.

In trouble again, I read an unidentified scroll which turned my hands blue - indicating a scroll of confuse monster! But it wasn't enough to save me.

 

Attempt 2:

I killed a cockatrice, and then absentmindedly stepped on its corpse.

Attempt 3:

A dragon awaited me right at the stairs. I tried to see if I could save my scroll of genocide by using one of confusion instead. The game told me the dragon appeared confused, but its fighting ability didn't seem affected in the slightest. Needless to say, I became lunch.

Attempt 4:

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened. I found a wand of light, and some odds and ends that I couldn't carry, including an ivory ring.

Level 21

• $7,162, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 11
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging, wand of light
  
• Magic whistle
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of genocide, 2 scrolls of confuse monster
  
• 11 food rations
• An unidentified scroll

 

Attempt 1:

The dog fell into a trap door, and I followed. The dog was there, non-hostile, and so were stairs leading down, so I descended. It did not follow!

A wraith in the stairs room on level 23 gave me another level-boosting corpse. I kept exploring, descending stairs whenever they were found, and by level 27, the scenery changed.

Without IBMgraphics support, the maze is difficult to read.

The maze! Is this the end?

Well, it was the end of this run. I explored, hit some dead ends, and then demons surrounded me.

Genocide time, right? Wrong. Demons can't be genocided - the scroll prompts you to input a letter, and the '&' sign is not accepted. My scrolls of confuse monster didn't even seem to help. What good are these things anyway?

Attempt 2:

I lost the dog to another trap door, but this time I decided I didn't care. The level was easy enough, the dog seemed more of a nuisance than a help at this point, and I found enough cool stuff while exploring that it seemed worth it.

Level 22

• $7,451, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 12
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging, wand of light, 2 wands of fire
  
• Magic whistle
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation, potion of object detection
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of genocide, scroll of confuse monster
  
• 11 food rations
• An unidentified scroll
• An unidentified ring
  

 

Attempt 1:

The dog was hostile and I had to put it down, which was actually pretty difficult and nearly got me killed. I encountered and a genocided a dragon, and discovered through use that my unidentified scroll was a self-immolating scroll of fire. Then I got overconfident and fought a purple worm at less than full health, and died.

Attempt 2:

This time the dog was not hostile... until I hit it by accident. And then I had to put it down. It carried a scroll of identification, which identified my ring as one of poison resistance - nice, but maybe not as useful as it might have been ten levels ago!

Multiple cockatrices wandered the level, but I avoided their stoning effect and took care not to step on their corpses. And I found the exit without any setbacks.

Level 23

• $8,396, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 12
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of poison resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of digging, wand of light, 2 wands of fire
  
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation, potion of object detection
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of genocide, scroll of confuse monster
  
• 10 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

I quaffed a potion of monster detection. Nothing but a leocrotta and a nurse, the latter of which dropped a scroll of enchant armor. Other monsters spawned in, but nothing I couldn't handle. I exhausted my wand of light but picked up a few useful things.

Level 24

• $9,046, AC 0, Str 18/75, Exp 12
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +4 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of poison resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of digging, 2 wands of fire
  
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation, potion of object detection
  
• 2 scrolls of remove curse, scroll of genocide, scroll of confuse monster
  
• 10 food rations, 1 tin

 

I noticed that my scrolls of remove curse didn't stack. Why not - is one of them cursed?

Attempt 1:

I figured the monster detection and object detection should be saved for the maze, but quaffed a potion of levitation just on the off-chance that it might prevent tripping a trapdoor during its brief duration. I'm not sure what else you do with these. It basically lasted long enough to explore one dark room, where I found a scroll of teleportation and another, unidentified scroll.

I killed a cockatrice in a corridor, and an umber hulk followed, stepping over its corpse to no detriment. I killed the umber hulk too, but barely, and really should have used a scroll of confuse monster. Oh well.

A third room held a snake hiding under a potion of invisibility, which I grabbed, and as I retreated, ran into a dragon! I wanted to see if I could kill it without genocide, so I drank the potion of invisibility - it still attacked me, but missed. I hit, it hit back. I used my scroll of confuse monster, and it hit, it breathed fire on me anyway, nearly killing me. One more hit and I died.

Attempt 2:

Right in the starting room, I fell for the old bag-of-cash-placed-on-the-trap-door trick.

 

On floor 25, I had a close call with a rust monster in the dark, and after killing it a purple worm swallowed me, but I hacked my way out before it could finish digesting me. Then, in a corridor, I got sandwiched between a powerful yeti, xorn, and zruty, but I beat them all.

I found a few things clearing out level 25, at least, and then returned to level 24, where I found another scroll of enchant armor, mutually confused and was then nearly killed by an umber hulk, ate some bad tinned food, and ran into a dragon in the dark which I genocided.

Finally, this run came to an end while exploring a dark room, three monsters - an ettin, a xorn, and a nurse all showed up at once and took turns hitting me. I drank a potion of invisibility which I found earlier in the level and tried to escape, but the nurse landed a killing blow on me anyway.

Attempt 3:

Killed by a demon. The scroll of confuse monster seemed to prevent it from summoning help, but didn't hurt its battle accuracy. One demon was enough.

Attempt 4:

A 'xan' pricked both my legs in combat. This did not affect my strength, but nevertheless caused me to collapse under my load as if it had. I dropped my arrows and killed it, and on its corpse found a potion which made my legs feel "somewhat better."

The rest of the level was the usual cycle of finding stuff and killing monsters, including an umber hulk. I got hungry and ate the tin - it contained strength-boosting spinach this time! And the loot included a scroll of enchant armor too. Even more notably, I found a +3 shield - that's a significant AC boost, though by now I was definitely having trouble carrying all of my stuff.

Lastly, I killed and ate a wraith - one of the few corpses light enough to lift - for another level boost.

Stats and items:

• $10,234, AC -5, Str 18/98, Exp 13
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +5 splint mail, +3 shield, 30 +0 arrows
• Ring of poison resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of digging, 2 wands of fire
  
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation, potion of object detection
  
• 2 scrolls of remove curse, scroll of genocide
• 12 food rations

Hack 1.01: Six teens

I got to be honest, my last two posts on Hack have been some of my least-read posts in awhile. So for this one, I thought I'd structure things a bit differently. I'm going to describe the narrative of each attempt, and they'll be subdivided by the anchor save starting point, which I increment whenever I descend a level and feel things have been going well (otherwise I just continue until I die). If this makes the post any more interesting to read, or if it just makes it more tedious, please chime in.

 

Level 14

• $2,822, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 8
• +1 mace, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 33 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Wand of light, wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation, 2 scrolls of identify
  
• Food ration, fortune cookie

 

Attempt 1:

A zombie fought in the dark dropped plate mail. Another dark room held a ration and a potion of sickness.

In a dark corridor, a rust monster ambushed me and ruined my armor - I desperately equipped the plate mail, but it was cursed -2 - better than the rusty splint mail but still bad. At least I could remove the curse if need be.

I descended to level 15 and didn't save. Here I found a potion of restore strength and a helmet in a dark room, and spent the last of my light wand charges.

And then a cockatrice in a corridor hissed at me. Fatally.

Attempt 2:

In the middle of the map, a group of orcs yielded a wire ring and a pink potion, and their corpses made decent dog food. The pink potion turned out to be a potion of invisibility, which for the time proved to be more annoying than helpful as you can't see your own @ while invisible. The ring identified as +2 increase damage - finally something good!

I spotted a rust monster in a dark room, and carefully removed my armor before engaging. It did some notable health damage, but my armor was fine.

Another dark room had a tengu, which was annoying but harmless, capable of doing little but hitting me and teleporting away. A long sword was found here too - I used my last identify scroll and found it was a +2 long sword!

A few more minor encounters got me a level up and a scroll of light. Obviously, I made an anchor save before 15.

 

Level 15

• $3,023, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 33 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Wand of light, wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation, scroll of light
  
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

A new monster type "leocrotta" exhibited no unusual qualities. Neither did a yeti, though it dropped some ring armor.

A nymph in a dark room stole my ring of cold resistance and teleported away, but as I explored, a yellow light blinded me with its attack, and it was one of those "see all monsters" blindness episodes, so I easily tracked down the nymph and took it back.

I exhausted my wand of light and scroll of light here, but found the exit satisfied that all was well. I also found an unidentified maple wand, whose purpose was not made obvious by test-firing it.

 

Level 16

• $3,113, AC 3, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +1 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Maple wand
  
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

Almost immediately, I found a potion of gain level and drank it. In the same room, a 'xan' pricked my right leg. In a corridor, an invisible stalker was little trouble. A beetle dropped an agate ring, and a pack of orcs dropped a platinum wand, but I had no scrolls of identify left for them.

All this would have been fine, except a rust monster in a corridor damaged my armor, and I wasn't willing to anchor this setback, so I continued to level 17 without saving.

Fighting a quasit, I tried out my wands. The maple wand turned it invisible, and the platinum wand prompted me to wish for an object!

Not sure how it worked, I typed "ring of +2 stealth" and received an unidentified "blackened ring" in exchange. I tried zapping again, this time wished for a "+5 plate mail." And received it! It was +5 and everything. And then I wished for a wand of wishing - that worked too, but alas, the new wand had no charges, and the original's had run out.

I killed and ate a wraith, which got me another level.

I descended to level 18.

Here, I found a long wand in the dark, which revealed to be a wand of cold when I test-zapped it. I drank my potion of monster detection, revealing a lecrotta, xan, and previously unencountered I and X. The latter turned out to be a Xorn - not harmful to me with my epic armor class, accompanied by an Umber Hulk.

Then I ate a monster called a "nurse" and got a nasty message.

But zombies were fine?

There were no immediate ill effects and I went down to level 19.

Here I found a "zruty" which did nothing unusual except leave a corpse too big for me to lift. A rust monster slightly harmed my armor, which I realized was cursed! Was that because of the wishing, or the cannibalism? A scroll of identify showed that the agate ring was one of adornment, i.e. useless.

An umber hulk confused me, and here, confusion means that even zapping wands will fire them in random directions, so those won't save you, but I survived. But I did not survive a dragon which spawned in the room with me.

Attempt 2:

A roaming rust monster wandered into a room as I explored, but I managed to remove my armor before it could rust it. Soon after that, a cockatrice hissed at me in the dark.

 

Attempt 3:

Killer bees!

Retreating and going through uncharted territory chased by bees seemed foolish, so I stood and fought using the doorway so that only one could hit at a time, and hasted the dog, but alas, a poison sting one-shotted me.

Attempt 4:

Almost immediately after descending, a trapdoor dumped me to level 17. Without the dog.

On 17, a rust monster hurt my armor before I found the stairs to ascend back up, but I located a silver wand and some tripe.

I found the dog soon, now aggressive, and tried offering my tripe to get it friendly again. It didn't work.

Attempt 5:

Nothing particularly eventful happened. I had just about finished exploring the level, found a random dead scorpion in the corridors which I left alone - presumably if the dog didn't eat it, then I shouldn't either. I killed a violet fungus on the way to the exit. Normally these are unappetizing but safe to eat, so I did. And the game told me I choked to death. Urghhh!

Attempt 6:

After exploring the level as thoroughly as I could and not seeing the way out or noticing any secret doors, I used my wand of digging to carve out tunnels. One tunnel freed a troll and an umber hulk who tag-teamed me to death.

Attempt 7:

Exploring was slow. As in, there was a delay after each move. What could be going on?

After exploring some tunnels and returning to the starting point, a dog that I can only assume was my own attacked me, and I had no choice but to put it down.

Or so I thought. Another, non-hostile dog was skulking around near the middle of the dungeon.

Something was off, though. It wouldn't follow me out of the room, not even when I blew the whistle. It kept sniffing around the south and east walls in particular. So I searched, and found the source of my emulated CPU slowdown.

 

Zounds! What happened next was a carnival of chaos as everything started attacking all at once. The umber hulk's gaze sent me into a state of confusion, and a vampire stole a level. I read a scroll of teleportation to escape, and rested to heal my wounds. The game informed me of a "sad feeling" - the dog must not have survived. And as I rested, a bee found its way to my location and killed me with a poisoned sting.

Attempt 8:

Several mimics spawned here - I learned quickly not to eat them or you will transform into a treasure chest for a little while. The dog will eat them without such effects. At one point while I ate a freshly killed centaur, a lecrotta wandered in and landed a few solid hits while I ate my giant meal, but the damage mostly regenerated. An unidentified scroll boosted my armor class. Overall this was a pretty uneventful run, but I survived it and saved.

 

Level 17

• $3,506, AC 2, Str 18, Exp 9
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +2 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse, scroll of teleportation
• Food ration

 

Attempt 1:

Killed by a cockatrice in a corridor.

Attempt 2:

I found another treasure zoo, but this one was much smaller and also in a dark room where I could fight monsters one at a time. This would have been great, and I found some interesting loot too, but then I got repeatedly level drained by a pair of vampires in the back. I beat them, but learned that you should not eat their corpses.

Attempt 3:

This time an armor shop generated. And boy, shops really suck in this version of Hack. Let me count the ways:

• There is no way to view what the items are in a shop. You've got to step on an item just to see what type it is, then drop it if you don't want it.
• There's no convenient way to find out what an item costs. You find out by offering to pay, and if you have enough gold you automatically buy it. If you don't, then you don't get told what it costs, only that you can't afford it.
• There's also no way to get the price of an item you want to sell. You drop it, you automatically sell it.
  
• On that note, if you drop an item that the shopkeeper doesn't want to buy, it's now his property anyway. You want it back, you have to pay for it.

 

After fighting what seemed like half of of the shop's inventory were mimics, being forced to buy my own arrows for $900, and buying both plate armors only to discover one was worse than my splint and the other was cursed, I ragequit.

Attempt 4:

Two good things happened very soon - I killed and ate a level-boosting wraith, and found another scroll of enchant armor.

Then I encountered a rust monster. Removing my armor to fight it, a swarm of killer bees entered the room behind me. Shit.

So I read my scroll of teleportation to get out and let the dog deal with it. After putting the armor back on, I returned to the fracas, and something new had slithered in.

This multi-tile monster is a long worm. To my surprise, I not only killed it easily, but eating it brought no negative effects! It left behind a worm tooth as well.

Level 18

• $3,954, AC 1, Str 18, Exp 10
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 3 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

A scroll of magic mapping found early on revealed the level layout and enabled me to efficiently loot the level before anything too troublesome could spawn in.

Level 19

• $4,647, AC 1, Str 18, Exp 10
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• Potion of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 5 food rations

 

Attempt 1:

Seems like almost every room is dark when you get this deep, and the dog just loves to walk right in front of where I'm to about step, causing me to accidentally hit him over and over again. Anyway, I saw a dragon, I tried my luck, and it didn't work out so well for me.

Attempt 2:

Killed by an Umber Hulk and it didn't even confuse me.

Attempt 3:

Finally, I found a real store, one full of food, scrolls, potions, and even rings.

I had made a bunch of stashes in the floors above, but for now it didn't seem necessary to retrieve them. Unloading what I had, I was able to buy a potion of leveling, a potion of strength, a scroll of magic mapping, and all of the food and unidentified magic scrolls except for some READ ME scrolls I had learned in prior attempts not to read, as they cause amnesia. And I still had more money than I came in with!

The map let me find the exit efficiently, and I made an anchor save before level 20. The end has got to be near, right?

Stats and items:

• $6,243, AC 1, Str 18/75, Exp 11
• +2 long sword, +1 bow, +3 splint mail, 31 +0 arrows
• Ring of cold resistance
• Ring of +2 increase damage
  
• Wand of speed monster, wand of digging
• Magic whistle
• 2 potions of monster detection, 2 potions of levitation
  
• Scroll of remove curse
• 11 food rations
• Four unidentified scrolls
  

Hack 1.01: Not the bees!

They just showed up out of nowhere!

What do?

Even with (or perhaps because of?) an anchor save on level 2, surviving level 3 with my new non-teleporting caveman was tough. I entered with experience level 4, 18 strength, a +1 enchanted mace, bow, and arrows, leather armor, and a few knick-knacks; some white gems, a magic dog-summoning whistle, a "wand of light," and a fortune cookie. It took me a whole bunch of tries to reach the next level with a satisfactory outcome.

My biggest enemy here was starvation. I must have entered a bit snackish, because it never took long to reach a state of hunger that my meager fortune cookie could not assuage, and not long after that to weaken and eventually die. Food is scarce, much scarcer than in Hack121, and you all but have to eat monster corpses to survive, but monsters do not spawn reliably, when they spawn they are not always edible species, nor do they always leave corpses, and sometimes the corpses are rotten to begin with or sometimes the dog eats them before you have a chance. Hack's tendency to generate mazes with long, winding tunnels with lots of secret doors further slows things down and makes you waste time and energy backtracking to forks in the tunnels and repeatedly searching every time you encounter a dead-end, which usually means a secret door but occasionally just means you waste 20 turns looking for one (and never know for sure that there isn't one).

My second biggest enemy was orcs. Each attempt at the level spawned a pack somewhere, often in corridors where they'd surround me and splash my unarmored guts on the wall. Frustratingly, orcs aren't good to eat; every single one of them yielded a rotten corpse, though the dog didn't seem to mind.

And lastly, my third worst enemy was my own carelessness. Never mind nasty surprises like equipping cursed gear, drinking poison potions, or stepping into traps - with so much tedious walking around and backtracking, I'd inevitably attack and kill my own dog, or run into something in a corridor I really didn't want to fight and attack it by accident. Or I'd just immediately descend the stairs after reloading and realize I left the dog behind.

But eventually, I had a run where everything went right. I killed and ate a hobgoblin, I encountered the orcs in a small room without too many of them, one of them dropped rations instead of rotten orc meat, I gained a level, I made no mistakes, and I found the stairs without any real setbacks. I didn't find much to help on the next level either - just some dog food and a red gem - but at least I had more food than a lousy fortune cookie.

Some notes, observations, and incidents that occurred over the next few levels, during which I continued to make anchor saves before each descent:

• I found a wand of magic missiles, which I saved for the giant ants.
• Armor can be both good and cursed at the same time. Unfortunately, this means identify scrolls won't identify curses; a +2 banded mail identified this way turned out to be cursed which meant I'd be screwed if I found something better, or got it badly corroded. I starved to death while wearing the cursed armor anyway.
• On the other hand, scrolls of destroy armor are one way of removing cursed armor. It's just a bummer news if you discover these scrolls while wearing something good.
  
• I did eventually locate +1 splint mail on level 6, which finally gave me some decent protection.
  
• Zombies are actually pretty good to eat.
• Fortune cookies always give me the exact same fortune: A fading corridor enlightens your insight. No idea what this means.
• The dreaded cockatrice showed up on level 8.
  
  
  
• Killer Bees showed up on level 9 and are nasty at my relative power level at the time of the encounter. They attack in swarms, attack multiple times per turn, and each hit has the possibility of strength-draining poison infliction, which means immobility and death given the amount of stuff I lug around in hopes of hocking some. And sometimes it kills instantly. The only way I survived level 9 was by using a wand of speed monster on the dog and then hitting the bees with every remaining magic missile charge, and even then this took me a few reloads.
• Sometimes blindness makes you see all the monsters on the level.
  
  
  
• The small dog became a "large dog" at some point.

 

As of this posting, I have an anchor save right before descending to level 12, and apart from my armor I haven't found anything really awesome yet, or even any shops to spend my cash at. Experience level is 8, strength is still at 18, and I don't know how I'd cope if I had picked a class with less.

My inventory, excluding vendor trash:

• +1 mace
• +1 bow
• 33 +0 arrows
  
• +1 splint mail 
• Ring of cold resistance
  
• Wand of light
• Wand of speed monster 
• Wand of digging
  
• Magic whistle
• 3 scrolls of identify
  
• 2 potions of levitation
• Potion of monster detection
  
• Food ration
• Tin
• Fortune cookie