Slash'Em

Slash'EM is a substantial 1997 variant of the legendary roguelike NetHack, expanding its already enormous collection of monsters, items, classes, spells, and gameplay possibilities. The basic formula remains brutally simple: explore a dungeon, gather equipment, fight monsters, solve problems, and try to survive long enough to become powerful. Of course, “simple” is doing an enormous amount of work there. A single careless decision can end an otherwise promising adventure, and the game has more ways to die than most players have time to discover. Its text-based presentation leaves plenty of room for imagination, while the sheer depth of the systems rewards experimentation and curiosity. Slash'EM is not a game you casually finish over a weekend. It is closer to a hobby that occasionally decides to kill you. For roguelike fans, however, that combination of discovery, danger, and unpredictability is precisely the attraction.