XNetHack

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xNetHack is a variant of NetHack, specifically the 3.7.0 development version, developed by IRC user aosdict (aka Phol ende wodan and copperwater).

Its main goals are:

1. Fix game balance issues.
2. Eliminate tedious and frustrating parts of the game.
3. Make uninteresting things more diverse, unique, and varied.
4. Experiment with new ideas from the community.

As stated by the game's wiki page, it is not intended to be a "kitchen-sink variant"—the main focus is on enhancing and deepening the existing systems in the game, only adding new objects, monsters, and roles where deemed appropriate. Being a variant of the latest version of NetHack, xNetHack regularly merges in their latest commits—it also draws inspiration from many other variants and patches: SpliceHack, EvilHack, NetHack Fourk, GruntHack, SliceHack, and various patches from the 3.4.3 era.

xNetHack's source code can be found here on Github for those looking to compile. Only support for Linux exists currently, though at least one person has managed to build it on a Mac. The latest version (6.0-dev) is available to play in-browser on the Hardfought public server (US server, EU server and AU server), and you can also play via SSH to nethack@hardfought.org, nethack@eu.hardfought.org or nethack@au.hardfought.org. The Hardfought web terminal also supports the tiles version of xNetHack, and it is the recommended method if you want to play with tiles (select "xNetHack" tileset and "square" font). Full changelogs for each version can be found on the game's NetHack wiki article.

A list of the developer's future plans can be viewed on Hardfought's local Etherpad.

Tropes used in XNetHack include:

• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Orcish Town is considered a Scrappy Level variant of Minetown in the vanilla game - in xNetHack, it's still mostly hostile and challenging, but Izchak is still alive and in his shop, while all the armor, weapons, spellbooks, and other shop loot normally found in Frontier Town is lying around on the ground for free, making it more worthwhile (or at least less likely a player who gets Orctown will Rage Quit).
  • The artifact wishing formula is changed so that only the number of artifact wishes previously made affects your odds of receiving one from said wish. While this makes the odds harsher as only your first artifact wish is guaranteed, this also prevents artifacts generated by other means (bones, sacrifice gifts, #naming, and random generation) from fouling your chances.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: A lot of fundamental changes were made from the base game that's very likely to trip up players taking what was changed for granted.
  • Several monster and monster class letters are changed up:
    • Mind flayers are now U (aberrations), not h (humanoids), which is important for those looking to read scrolls of genocide.
  • Unicorn horns no longer restore lost ability points, which doubles as a buff to the potion and spell of restore ability that were formerly made redundant. xNetHack was the first to implement this balance change, which was popular enough to make it into other variants and even the in-development version of vanilla!
  • Dragon-scaled armor replaces dragon scale mail, which among other things means that a wish for dragon scale mail will give a player the corresponding scales instead—it also means that reading a scroll of enchant armor while only wearing those scales now turns you into a dragon.
  • There is no spell of identify - the spell was considered a Game Breaker in vanilla NetHack, since a player could barricade themselves up with some food and slowly but surely identify every single item on hand with no need for scrolls (outside of unfortunate bouts with amnesia). However, scrolls of identify are much more reliable in return, and the number of identifications they give depends entirely on their beatitude.
• Useless Item:
  • Averted with the potion of restore ability, due to unicorn horns being nerfed so that they no longer restore stats (which made the potion semi-redundant). As mentioned above, the already-useful scrolls of identify were made more useful to compensate for not being made redundant by its removed spell counterpart, also averting this.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Averted with the spell of restore ability; like the potion, unicorn horns being nerfed so that they no longer restore stats makes both it and the spell far more viable.