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HACK(6)                       NetBSD Games Manual                      HACK(6)


NAME

     hack -- exploring The Dungeons of Doom


SYNOPSIS

     hack [-d directory] [-n] [-u playername]
     hack [-d directory] [-s] [-X] [playername ...]


DESCRIPTION

     hack is a display oriented dungeons & dragons-like game.  Both display
     and command structure resemble rogue.  (For a game with the same struc-
     ture but entirely different display - a real cave instead of dull rectan-
     gles - try Quest.)

     To get started you really only need to know two commands.  The command ?
     will give you a list of the available commands and the command / will
     identify the things you see on the screen.

     To win the game (as opposed to merely playing to beat other people's high
     scores) you must locate the Amulet of Yendor which is somewhere below the
     20th level of the dungeon and get it out.  Nobody has achieved this yet
     and if somebody does, he will probably go down in history as a hero among
     heroes.

     When the game ends, either by your death, when you quit, or if you escape
     from the caves, hack will give you (a fragment of) the list of top scor-
     ers.  The scoring is based on many aspects of your behavior but a rough
     estimate is obtained by taking the amount of gold you've found in the
     cave plus four times your (real) experience.  Precious stones may be
     worth a lot of gold when brought to the exit.  There is a 10% penalty for
     getting yourself killed.

     The administration of the game is kept in the directory specified with
     the -d option, or, if no such option is given, in the directory specified
     by the environment variable HACKDIR, or, if no such variable exists, in
     the current directory.  This same directory contains several auxiliary
     files such as lockfiles and the list of topscorers and a subdirectory
     save where games are saved.  The game administrator may however choose to
     install hack with a fixed playing ground, usually /var/games/hackdir.

     The -n option suppresses printing of the news.

     The -u playername option supplies the answer to the question "Who are
     you?".  When playername has as suffix one of -T, -S, -K, -F, -C, or -W,
     then this supplies the answer to the question "What kind of character ...
     ?".

     The -s option will print out the list of your scores.  It may be followed
     by arguments -X where X is one of the letters C, F, K, S, T, W to print
     the scores of Cavemen, Fighters, Knights, Speleologists, Tourists or Wiz-
     ards.  It may also be followed by one or more player names to print the
     scores of the players mentioned.


ENVIRONMENT

     USER or LOGNAME           Your login name.
     HOME                      Your home directory.
     SHELL                     Your shell.
     TERM                      The type of your terminal.
     HACKPAGER, PAGER          Pager used instead of default pager.
     MAIL                      Mailbox file.
     MAILREADER                Reader used instead of default (probably
                               /usr/bin/mail).
     HACKDIR                   Playground.
     HACKOPTIONS               String predefining several hack options (see
                               help file).

     Several other environment variables are used in debugging (wizard) mode,
     like GENOCIDED, INVENT, MAGIC and SHOPTYPE.


FILES

     hack                      The hack program.
     data, rumors              Data files used by hack.
     help, hh                  Help data files.
     record                    The list of topscorers.
     save                      A subdirectory containing the saved games.
     bones_dd                  Descriptions of the ghost and belongings of a
                               deceased adventurer.
     xlock.dd                  Description of a dungeon level.
     safelock                  Lock file for xlock.
     record_lock               Lock file for record.


AUTHORS

     Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) wrote the orig-
     inal hack, very much like rogue (but full of bugs).

     Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into the current ver-
     sion - in fact an entirely different game.


BUGS

     Probably infinite.  Mail complaints to mcvax!aeb .

NetBSD 9.4                      March 31, 1985                      NetBSD 9.4