About a week ago, I noticed that nitrohack.org had gone offline. Apparently, that fork is no longer being maintained, but instead the effort is now being put into Nethack4, a combination of Acehack and Nitrohack. I have heard that Nitrohack had a bug that corrupted save files, which I can’t dispute even though I never had a problem in over 40 games. I speculate that my inability to survive beyond the Sokoban levels may be related to my non-corrupted saves, but there’s no way to be sure.
Nethack4 seems to be the current “unofficial sequel” to Nethack. Unfortunately there’s no binary at the moment, and compiling on Windows is not yet possible. My efforts to compile it on Linux haven’t succeeded yet, so the easiest way to play it is online (by ssh or telnet to nethack@nethack4.org).
One useful change in Nethack4 is that you receive a warning when you are about to eat tainted food. I appreciate things like that…it doesn’t make the game easier but just avoids some of the more annoying problems in the original game.
This Valkyrie didn’t last too long, but I am out of practice. With some more playtime, I should manage to reach Minetown pretty consistently, and after that work on the Sokoban levels.
One Day, I Will Ascend 