NetHack from aaaa to Zruty Ep. 3: Learning about shops and altars

Welcome to our newest Let’s Play series! I’m diving into the end-all-be-all of roguelikes, a game you may have heard of but probably haven’t played. NetHack has been around since 1987 as a descendant of Rogue, which a few games have taken inspiration from since then. But where Rogue was a simple game that was expanded on in Hack and NetHack, NetHack hasn’t spawned its own sequel: it’s simply grown and grown and grown in complexity for nearly 30 years.

Well, except for the ASCII graphics. Those are still pretty simple.

The same way I took on Dwarf Fortress, I decided I wanted to learn the ropes of NetHack with an experienced player at my side. My friend Jeremy Nissen, who has completed many NetHack runs, joins me for this series to impart wisdom, explain NetHack’s intricacies, and let me get my self killed on more than one occasion.

Look for new episodes every Wednesday!

In this episode: Wes continues his second NetHack run and encounters some fundamentals of NetHack for the first time: shops and altars! Shops are pretty self-explanatory, but altars are a hugely important part of NetHack for testing items. Come learn about them along with us!