CrecelleHack is an actively maintained variant of NetHack 3.7. Delve into a lush, growing dungeon filled with strange creatures and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor for your god.
The first release of CrecelleHack is forthcoming.
Note that many of the following documentation files contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.
- Craft a dungeon that feels more alive and fosters a sense of place. NetHack is a fantasy soup game, with most of its ideas derived from D&D 1e. While this is not necessarily a bad thing and is not something I wish to totally divorce Crecelle from, it is not entirely to my taste, and I think that a stronger setting would make for a much stronger game. This place isn't just a deathtrap or generic dungeon, it's a home.
- Promote strategic gameplay and open up additional character development options. NetHack is a game in which character builds, such that they are, include very little variation. Further, the lack of a strong clock and the presence of burst economy in the form of wishes ensures that players do not attempt to ascend until they have everything they need. The part of NetHack that I find most fun (improvising in order to escape from difficult situations) vanishes not only with player skill, but with character skill, as players minimize all potential risks that their character might face.
- Add monsters and items that are interesting for reasons beyond their stat blocks. Further, diversify existing monsters, forcing the player to vary how they approach them. Many monsters in NetHack tend to blend together, particularly in the lategame. While I do not believe it is possible to fully solve this problem, I believe that with careful modification of NetHack's combat system and enemies it is possible to craft a combat system with greater depth.
- Implement ideas that seem impossible to implement in NetHack. I've been coding NetHack variants and coding in C for a long time, and I get a lot of joy out of implementing SMOPs. I want to surprise players with things that they thought they would never see in NetHack, like potions coating and alchemizing on the floor and a dynamic day/night cycle.
So you ascended! Congratulations. If you post an issue with proof that you did so, I will add your character (or a character you create) to the game in the form of a unique monster. One per person, while supplies last, and I reserve the right to reject anything in poor taste or remove them in the future. I'm sure this is a good idea and that only good things will come of this.
CrecelleHack of course falls under the NetHack license.
SpliceHack is no longer maintained by me. This variant is, in many ways, a design evolution of SpliceHack. It's more focused, more tightly coded, less buggy, and hopefully more culturally sensitive. It's not perfect (we've inherited the Samurai role from vanilla NetHack, after all) but I'm endeavouring not to make the same missteps I feel that I did previously.
I love supporting tileset-based play, and I wish I could. Unfortunately, many of the features in CrecelleHack are impossible to represent graphically and rely on ascii for presentation. Any kind of tiles support would require significant changes in how graphical tiles are handled by NetHack.
Open up a GitHub issue, or contact me in IRC or Discord. This goes for bugs as well as YANIs, YASIs, and EPIs. Please don't bother the NetHack DevTeam about anything in this variant. I don't really look at Reddit or newsgroups, so posting there is unlikely to get an answer.
Please don't hesitate to open up an issue. I'm human and I make mistakes; if something in the game is broken, insensitive, or just plain not fun, I would always rather know.
Exactly as you would compile vanilla NetHack 3.7.