Hack

About

Hack is a 1984 dungeon crawler where you play as a character like a Wizard or Caveman, navigating procedurally generated levels to find the Amulet of Yendor. You fight monsters with weapons, spells, and loot while managing limited food and carry capacity. Every choice matters, leaving gear behind risks losing points, but holding onto too much can slow you down or lead to starvation. The deeper you go, the more dangerous the dungeon becomes, with traps, hostile creatures, and the near-impossible challenge of reaching Hell to claim the Amulet. The game’s design emphasizes risk and consequence. Items like potions and wands have hidden effects, and understanding how they interact is key to survival. Hell itself is a death trap for unprepared players, a brutal test that defines many runs. Though simple by modern standards, its depth and difficulty have influenced later roguelikes. Players who stick with it often cite its punishing challenge and the satisfaction of beating the system through strategy.

Storyline

The object of the game is to delve into a dungeon to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, and perish with as much game points as possible. The player can start out with a different ability set, such as Wizard or Cave(wo)man. The player confronts various monsters: hobgoblins, leprechauns, acid blobs, bats, centaurs, chameleons, dragons, ghosts, imps, trolls, and has weapons, armor, potions, wands, rings and special items to aid in this, e.g. related to fire there is a scroll, a ring, a monster and a wand, and their interplay is to be discovered. There is time pressure because you die if your food runs out, food is scattered around the dungeon. There is a limit to what you can carry, forcing you to leave valuable items behind. The gold and gems you carry when you die increases your score, but it is heavy too. The player must enter Hell to recover the Amulet. Entering Hell for the uninitiated just means that "you burn to a crisp". (In NetHack, Hell is renamed.) The player encounters special rooms such as shops, crypts, and vaults. Other spatial elements in the game are traps and swamps. As your experience grows, so are your abilities, score and the need for food. Retrieving the Amulet doesn't guarantee you the high score. After all the Amulet is just a very valuable gem.