Sure, I just updated the wiki. So Kick is back at Ctrl-d and Dig was moved to Alt-g (diG), being not super-relevant command. Help files in the binaries were already updated.
Initial impressions on GnollHack [Alpha]
- Thread starter Tero Karttunen
- Start date
I just opened two threads for bugs:
Linux bugs:
community.soundmindgames.com
Windows bugs:
community.soundmindgames.com
You can now also use Linux and Windows as a thread prefix.
Linux bugs:
Linux - Report Linux bugs here
This thread is for reporting bugs on Linux.
Windows bugs:
Windows - Report Windows bugs here
This thread is for reporting bugs that appear on the Windows platform.
You can now also use Linux and Windows as a thread prefix.
Samuli Aalto
Member
Played beta now first time, and once played alpha, so a complete newbie to the game.
My first impressions are, well a lot to learn to play properly: How does one pick up objects lying around?
Also figured it's a lot easier and faster to move around by mouse clicking than with keyboard.
Graphical enhancement to the game the would be nice, which I did notice to be in development plans.
Good job though, did get me interested into such an old title. Feels like going to the roots in gaming so classic.
My first impressions are, well a lot to learn to play properly: How does one pick up objects lying around?
Also figured it's a lot easier and faster to move around by mouse clicking than with keyboard.
Graphical enhancement to the game the would be nice, which I did notice to be in development plans.
Good job though, did get me interested into such an old title. Feels like going to the roots in gaming so classic.
It's using comma ','. It is mentioned in our Starting Guide for Beginners, in the item section:
hyvanmielenpelit/GnollHack
Rogue-like game based on NetHack. Contribute to hyvanmielenpelit/GnollHack development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
rahn
New member
Hi everyone. Not a bug report I'm just posting an experience here.
I would say, the game plays very very well! I currently have my best run ever (even compared to other variants or nethack itself) level 11 Gnollish Caveman Neutral Male. AC -5 or 6 I think.
First artifact gift was Vorpal (awesome) which I had fun with. I don't remember if the flail I started with was +3 but anyhow it is a +3 rusted flail which we twoweaponed with Vorpal for a while. I need to go back and read gnollhack documentation because twoweapon feels a little unusual. Switching with x works quite well as long as you don't have a shield in the mix - it can get a little weird, but I think this is probably because a shield is "worn" with a hand, not actually strapped to the character. Having shields be worn like armor made me think of them as strapped to my character's back or chest but it makes total sense now that I think it over.
#enhance with twoweapon is a little confusing. AFAIK in stock nethack when you twoweapon you aren't training either weapon, but rather the twoweapon skill. However, I did in fact gain XP while twoweapon in swords, but not flail - what? maybe it's based on which item is in which hand. not sure. also, I don't see a twoweapon skill on the #enhance screen, yet other messages in the game say that I'm unskilled with twoweapon and I have a to-hit penalty of -6 to -3.
I wish I could wield my hands in order to unwield both my left hand and right hand weapon - instead it seems I wield my hands to clear my right hand, and then I have to drop and pick up my left hand weapon in order to free up both.
So anyhow down to the mines. caveman/gnoll being a rather poor spellcaster meant that charm monster had a 100% fail until higher levels, and gnolls make sucky pets. they are slow and don't follow very well even with a leash (and I was very relieved to see I could leash an intelligent pet unlike nethack.) of course my starting pet had long been dead by then. pets have been a very challenging part of this run because I am leveling up far too fast and I'm no longer carried by Vorpal, an artifact is basically necessary now.
I was also able to fire-enchant vorpal and the flail for some extra damage but I'm not finding enough sulphur to keep the enchant around.
after mines/minetown we sacrificed and got Cleaver. off of pure damage I didn't see an advantage to switching, it's a twohanded weapon so no twoweapon. However I did not realize 3.6.1 added an arc attack which it seems was pulled into Gnollhack's code also. Awesome! I feel bad for new players who are going to find out they can kill their pet with it...
Eventually I had 6-7 potions which I converted to holy water so Cleaver is now blessed. I dunked several scrolls of identify and I only had to read two for the whole-inventory-identify to happen.
That's the latest. I'm at a standstill right now because the item generation is very sporadic and RNG is either your friend or your worst enemy. I have not seen as many shops as I feel that I do in nethack, and no item theft with pets anyway, so. the gardens are nice! next I suppose I'll complete sokoban which should be safe enough to do. I'm going to need better armor or more scrolls or a magic marker or a wand of wishing because this armor won't cut it forever.
Thanks for reading! I have a bug/weird thing to report/ask which I'll put in the other thread. Thanks to everyone who's working on and contributed to this hack.
I would say, the game plays very very well! I currently have my best run ever (even compared to other variants or nethack itself) level 11 Gnollish Caveman Neutral Male. AC -5 or 6 I think.
First artifact gift was Vorpal (awesome) which I had fun with. I don't remember if the flail I started with was +3 but anyhow it is a +3 rusted flail which we twoweaponed with Vorpal for a while. I need to go back and read gnollhack documentation because twoweapon feels a little unusual. Switching with x works quite well as long as you don't have a shield in the mix - it can get a little weird, but I think this is probably because a shield is "worn" with a hand, not actually strapped to the character. Having shields be worn like armor made me think of them as strapped to my character's back or chest but it makes total sense now that I think it over.
#enhance with twoweapon is a little confusing. AFAIK in stock nethack when you twoweapon you aren't training either weapon, but rather the twoweapon skill. However, I did in fact gain XP while twoweapon in swords, but not flail - what? maybe it's based on which item is in which hand. not sure. also, I don't see a twoweapon skill on the #enhance screen, yet other messages in the game say that I'm unskilled with twoweapon and I have a to-hit penalty of -6 to -3.
I wish I could wield my hands in order to unwield both my left hand and right hand weapon - instead it seems I wield my hands to clear my right hand, and then I have to drop and pick up my left hand weapon in order to free up both.
So anyhow down to the mines. caveman/gnoll being a rather poor spellcaster meant that charm monster had a 100% fail until higher levels, and gnolls make sucky pets. they are slow and don't follow very well even with a leash (and I was very relieved to see I could leash an intelligent pet unlike nethack.) of course my starting pet had long been dead by then. pets have been a very challenging part of this run because I am leveling up far too fast and I'm no longer carried by Vorpal, an artifact is basically necessary now.
I was also able to fire-enchant vorpal and the flail for some extra damage but I'm not finding enough sulphur to keep the enchant around.
after mines/minetown we sacrificed and got Cleaver. off of pure damage I didn't see an advantage to switching, it's a twohanded weapon so no twoweapon. However I did not realize 3.6.1 added an arc attack which it seems was pulled into Gnollhack's code also. Awesome! I feel bad for new players who are going to find out they can kill their pet with it...
Eventually I had 6-7 potions which I converted to holy water so Cleaver is now blessed. I dunked several scrolls of identify and I only had to read two for the whole-inventory-identify to happen.
That's the latest. I'm at a standstill right now because the item generation is very sporadic and RNG is either your friend or your worst enemy. I have not seen as many shops as I feel that I do in nethack, and no item theft with pets anyway, so. the gardens are nice! next I suppose I'll complete sokoban which should be safe enough to do. I'm going to need better armor or more scrolls or a magic marker or a wand of wishing because this armor won't cut it forever.
Thanks for reading! I have a bug/weird thing to report/ask which I'll put in the other thread. Thanks to everyone who's working on and contributed to this hack.
Hi Rahn, thanks for the report. I'm happy you are enjoying the game. I will look into the two-weapon skill training. I think the correct behavior should be to train the two-weapon fighting skill AND both weapon skills, but I cannot recall from the top of my head what the behavior in the game is, since I don't think we touched that part of the game really. As to shops, there should be more of them on early levels (at least one almost surely), but overall they are pretty random on lower levels, so it may be very much up to chance how many of them you see both in NetHack and GnollHack. There should not be a big difference overall. In any case, thanks very much for the detailed report. We are committed to make the game even better going forward.
Dear all, please note that we are organizing a GnollHack beta tournament starting tomorrow, 1 April. There is a $200 prize pool for ascensions. We also recently published the 4.0.22 version, which is being played at the tournament.
Hawkwood4268
New member
As a millennial I got to say I really like Gnollhack so far! Know this thread is a little old, thought I'd drop some feedback too. I've got a lvl 10 gnoll caveman that just cleared out Sokoban. Im playing on expert I believe (or hard?) whatever is 100% combat, coming from a lot of NetHack and other variants. Minetown was orctown which sucked but I love that there's still a loot box with some good stuff to make up for the lack of shops. Taking it slow as this is my first run ever and I've only read the description on the download site.
Some positives:
Some positives:
- Starting with a co-aligned altar and stash is very convenient, but maybe disable altar at higher difficulties
- Animations are fun
- Orctown loot crate was really fun, made it more worthwhile
- New store services and valuables (gold, silver, platinum ore etc) to find are really fun, more standard RPG feel to gold
- Ranged is definitely more viable with switching weapons not taking a turn
- Examining items in inventory is SO HELPFUL, would love even more info on potential uses of items
- Sometimes it's a little hard to tell which square a monster or object is on, maybe a toggleable grid system would be nice, or more defined shadows underneath monsters/objects (can still use : to view where they are, but it would be nice for it to be more seamless)
- Mummy rot is very common, can be dangerous for new players, it would be nice if there was a way to view current ailments and their cures, I just happened to guess holy water would do the trick
- Shop keep dialogue on every item pickup is a little much
- Sometimes animations/events around you conflict with your input or doesn't register- particularly noticeable in Sokoban where a LEFT DOWN RIGHT to a boulder quickly while your pet is doing something, the first command isn't registered and you just push the boulder down
Last edited:
Hi!
Thanks for the feedback! It's always nice when someone has tested the game and has some insight to share.
But having a toggleable grid is a good idea, since sometimes I also have a problem seeing where diagonal lines go (north east, north west, south east, south west).
Thanks for the feedback! It's always nice when someone has tested the game and has some insight to share.
You can use the View -> Toggle Hit Point Bars or View -> Toggle Targetting.
But having a toggleable grid is a good idea, since sometimes I also have a problem seeing where diagonal lines go (north east, north west, south east, south west).
Yeah, praying, any means of cure sickness (e.g. eating a fig), and apparently holy water are ways to cure mummy rot. I usually pray.
@Janne Gustafsson Is it possible that some dialogue lines would not play if the character is speaking already? Especially, the lines when you pick up items in a shop. Some lines, like the welcome line and the pick-axe line, need to play always, though.
I think we had sometimes problems with commands queuing up during animations, which was also very deadly. So now the game may just ignore them during animations. We will think about what is the best solution.
Hawkwood4268
New member
@Tommi Gustafsson Thanks for the response! Turning on the health bars is helpful. Shopkeep dialogue repeat is very minor, overall I like the voice lines in the game it's cool to see Nethack come more alive.
I didn't know about the fig, that will come in handy. The new consumeables are very useful! Im not sure if it's too easy to gain new attributes yet, but it also seems like there are lots of new ways to lose them! So far the balancing seems good, everything feels very intentional. I need to get my resistances set and get a better weapon I think before advancing much further.
I'll put any major issues/bugs on the thread if I run into them.
I didn't know about the fig, that will come in handy. The new consumeables are very useful! Im not sure if it's too easy to gain new attributes yet, but it also seems like there are lots of new ways to lose them! So far the balancing seems good, everything feels very intentional. I need to get my resistances set and get a better weapon I think before advancing much further.
I'll put any major issues/bugs on the thread if I run into them.
Hi, I added a toggleable grid to the development version (a new version will come out probably after the summer). Also, the input commands work now so that if user gives input during a wait, the wait / animation / any other effect breaks until the command is processed. This way you can speed up the game to the same level as in the ASCII version, just by giving input during animations. However, I didn't yet do anything about possibly excessively verbose shopkeepers; the issue needs some more careful consideration. In fact, in NetHack, the shopkeepers do speak equally much; you just don't hear it.
Hawkwood4268
New member
That's awesome! Im really excited to try out these changes. Grid sounds really useful, and the new animation interrupt will be a gamechanger. Chatty shopkeeps isn't an issue, they are just like NetHack haha.
What might be nice is being able to utilize the new valuable items as currency in all shops. Selling the various ingots and gems anywhere, since gold has so much more functionality. Perhaps to blacksmiths at least? Im not sure how selling to them would work. I have a big pile of ingots but the only general store so far is out of gold.
Im still alive in my gnoll caveman run, going through the quest and everything feels very true to the original while still being "more." The new pet and neutral monster systems are brilliant. I hated waiting for watchmen to move down long corridors. And calling to your pets is a godsend.
I think blacksmith buying ores makes very much sense. In any case, a dwarven geologist, unsurprisingly, can buy them already, as well as any other gems and stones. Selling (and buying) works through the chat menu (C), and the item just moves to the NPC's inventory and you get the money. And vice versa if you buy items from them.
Hawkwood4268
New member
SPOILERS AHEAD
First ascension in Gnollhack! And first Caveman for me too. What a ride, this game is awesome. Had some bumps along the way but the devs were fantastic at helping troubleshoot and fixing some bugs. Overall, Gnollhack is a lot harder than vanilla NetHack, especially once you reach Gehennom. My game lasted over 80,000 turns, probably more than half after reaching the Castle.
Ascension kit was really fun to put together with all the new items and accessory slots. Wings are so cool. I went into this game pretty blind not knowing what resistances and protections I would need. I've played some other variants like Slash'Em so I figured erring on the side of caution was best. The addition of new NPCs and shop interactions are great, gold definitely has more function now. I used most of it on enchanting, IDing, and of course protection. This was my first ever ascension without GDSM or SDSM and it was refreshing. I never figured out how to throw Mjolnir and get it to come back but Im assuming 25 strength is necessary (I had 18/** till my gauntlets of ogre strength went missing to a harpy).
I would say that the early game was easier than vanilla, but the mid to late game was substantially more difficult. Especially with demons of all varieties gating in other demons. And the monster summoning spell casters were a giant headache. And harpies...they're getting the big G next time I play. Combat has significantly more involvement now with new status effects and spells and monster abilities...wow this game has depth. And it gives you tools to deal with everything as long as you're patient.
The Astral Plane was the hardest I've ever had it (aside from dying to Pestilence once in UnNetHack). Teleportation wands are nerfed to a single monster instead of a beam, and you cant teleport the riders anymore (I only tried on Death). The altar was the last one I checked. I'll be posting a review on the subreddit as well and hopefully get some more hackers trying this variant out.
Will be trying out other roles and continue testing!
First ascension in Gnollhack! And first Caveman for me too. What a ride, this game is awesome. Had some bumps along the way but the devs were fantastic at helping troubleshoot and fixing some bugs. Overall, Gnollhack is a lot harder than vanilla NetHack, especially once you reach Gehennom. My game lasted over 80,000 turns, probably more than half after reaching the Castle.
Ascension kit was really fun to put together with all the new items and accessory slots. Wings are so cool. I went into this game pretty blind not knowing what resistances and protections I would need. I've played some other variants like Slash'Em so I figured erring on the side of caution was best. The addition of new NPCs and shop interactions are great, gold definitely has more function now. I used most of it on enchanting, IDing, and of course protection. This was my first ever ascension without GDSM or SDSM and it was refreshing. I never figured out how to throw Mjolnir and get it to come back but Im assuming 25 strength is necessary (I had 18/** till my gauntlets of ogre strength went missing to a harpy).
I would say that the early game was easier than vanilla, but the mid to late game was substantially more difficult. Especially with demons of all varieties gating in other demons. And the monster summoning spell casters were a giant headache. And harpies...they're getting the big G next time I play. Combat has significantly more involvement now with new status effects and spells and monster abilities...wow this game has depth. And it gives you tools to deal with everything as long as you're patient.
The Astral Plane was the hardest I've ever had it (aside from dying to Pestilence once in UnNetHack). Teleportation wands are nerfed to a single monster instead of a beam, and you cant teleport the riders anymore (I only tried on Death). The altar was the last one I checked. I'll be posting a review on the subreddit as well and hopefully get some more hackers trying this variant out.
Will be trying out other roles and continue testing!
Attachments
Congratulations on your ascension. Harpies are also the first monster to genocide for me, followed by snakes.
In GnollHack, you need only strength 18/100 to throw it. But it only returns to a valkyrie. It has the same behaviour in NetHack:
Mjollnir - NetHack Wiki
Mjollnir (colloquially Mojo) is an artifact weapon that appears in NetHack. It is neutral for wishing purposes, and its base item is a war hammer. It is the first guaranteed sacrifice gift for Valkyries.
nethackwiki.com
I think in GnollHack it has a 100% chance to return to a valkyrie.
Great stuff. Happy that I managed to save Anomaly from that insidious castle crash.SPOILERS AHEAD
First ascension in Gnollhack! And first Caveman for me too. What a ride, this game is awesome. Had some bumps along the way but the devs were fantastic at helping troubleshoot and fixing some bugs. Overall, Gnollhack is a lot harder than vanilla NetHack, especially once you reach Gehennom. My game lasted over 80,000 turns, probably more than half after reaching the Castle.
Ascension kit was really fun to put together with all the new items and accessory slots. Wings are so cool. I went into this game pretty blind not knowing what resistances and protections I would need. I've played some other variants like Slash'Em so I figured erring on the side of caution was best. The addition of new NPCs and shop interactions are great, gold definitely has more function now. I used most of it on enchanting, IDing, and of course protection. This was my first ever ascension without GDSM or SDSM and it was refreshing. I never figured out how to throw Mjolnir and get it to come back but Im assuming 25 strength is necessary (I had 18/** till my gauntlets of ogre strength went missing to a harpy).
I would say that the early game was easier than vanilla, but the mid to late game was substantially more difficult. Especially with demons of all varieties gating in other demons. And the monster summoning spell casters were a giant headache. And harpies...they're getting the big G next time I play. Combat has significantly more involvement now with new status effects and spells and monster abilities...wow this game has depth. And it gives you tools to deal with everything as long as you're patient.
The Astral Plane was the hardest I've ever had it (aside from dying to Pestilence once in UnNetHack). Teleportation wands are nerfed to a single monster instead of a beam, and you cant teleport the riders anymore (I only tried on Death). The altar was the last one I checked. I'll be posting a review on the subreddit as well and hopefully get some more hackers trying this variant out.
Will be trying out other roles and continue testing!
A more varied ascension kit (in fact, more good items in general) is what we have tried to come up with, so you do not have to always have just the same items. The increased difficulty in late game is partly explained by the fact that NetHack is missing most of the high level monsters, which made also late game and Gehennom a bit boring in that respect. But it is also a deliberate design choice that the game is easy to start but still provides enough challenge to the very end, even with a very powerful suite of equipment.
Hawkwood4268
New member
Im really happy you were able to save it! I've had ascension ready mobile game lost to crashes and I know the game is alpha so I would have just let it go. And the Plane of Air aid was much appreciated! I really enjoyed the playthrough, the varied ascension kit possibilities combined with the diverse horde in Gehennom makes the late game very engaging. Im loving the changes, Gnollhack absolutely captures the essence of NetHack while still delivering something new and fresh. I might compare it to Tales of Maj'Eyal but in the Hack environment (which is substantially preferable) and just better overall.
And harpies are definitely going next time around! Watched my health drain to 1/4th after one stole my helm of free action and hit me with a ! of paralysis. Very scary.
Fantastic work!