MirBSD manpage: hack(6)
HACK(6) BSD Reference 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 structure
but entirely different display - a real cave instead of dull rectangles -
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 get-
ting 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
Wizards. 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 ori-
ginal 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 .
MirBSD #10-current March 31, 1985 1