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 scorers.  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 getting 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/bsdgames/hack.

     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.

AUTHORS

     Jay Fenlason (+ Kenny Woodland, Mike Thome and Jon Payne) wrote the original hack, very much
     like rogue (but full of bugs).
     Andries Brouwer continuously deformed their sources into the current version - in fact an
     entirely different game.

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.

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.

BUGS

     Probably infinite.  Mail complaints to mcvax!aeb .