Released in 1984, Hack is one of those games that quietly shaped an entire genre while pretending not to care if you understood it or not. This early roguelike doesn’t bother with hand-holding, tutorials, or even basic kindness. You’re dropped into a dungeon made of ASCII symbols and expected to survive using wits, patience, and a strong tolerance for sudden, unfair death. Yet that’s exactly where its charm lies. Hack feels like a tabletop RPG translated by a very grumpy programmer, complete with unpredictable items, cryptic messages, and monsters that exist solely to ruin your day. Every run becomes a story, usually tragic, sometimes heroic, always memorable. It’s slow, cerebral, and utterly unapologetic. If you ever wondered where modern roguelikes learned to be so cruel and addictive at the same time, this is one of their spiritual ancestors—and it still bites.
Love the game, still playing it on Internet Archive.
Sol 04/01/2022 06:35
I haven't been able to play Hack since my last machine capable of playing any MS-DOS games left my Life. That was at least as far back as 1996. I played Hack from 1987 until then, on and off, as the various versions progressed and I had a computer available to play it. It is an extremely fun game, albeit with 40/80 graphics. That's 40 rows of standard alphanumeric characters tall, and 80 such characters wide. It has it's own sort of "Culture" within the Game itself. I praise the designers for the Game endures in the memories of Nerd Arcana Semi-Magi such as myself. I played every single type of character, and you have to. I don't want to give the show away, but it's important to play the Speleologist, the tourist, the Caveman, the Knight (that's Kenniggett for all you Monte Pythoners out there) the Fighter, and the Wizard. When your characters die, and they will most of them, their treasure piles are saved for subsequent players. Their ghosts are saved too. Make no mistake, your characters will be up to their eyeballs in Bantha-pudu. But You will have Hours and Hours and Hours of Hilarious Fun. There was another Game which is sort of a Graduate Level of Hack, called Omega. It helps A LOT to have played D&D but it is not crucial. I look forward to playing it again. And with the Utmost of Heartfelt Respect for The Games Designers I cry out like a voice in the misty, fading distance, "LONG LIVE THE MAKERS OF HACK, AND THE GAME ITSELF! HURRAH!"
Dave 26/01/2021 07:04
Played this for hundreds of hours in 1984-1987. Loved it. Won once I think....something like level 18 or something. Teleport needed to get into rooms without doors or tunnels. Leprechaun very helpful if I remember correctly. Lots of armor, gems, etc. It goes on and on! It’s been soooo long ago.
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