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NetHack:The Best Game you've never heard of.
NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987. It is a descendant of an earlier game called Hack (1985), which is a descendant of Rogue (1980).
The "net" element references that its development has been coordinated through the Internet. The "hack" element refers to a genre of role-playing games known as hack and slash for their focus on combat. The player takes the part of a dungeon-delving character in search of the Amulet of Yendor.
NetHack is open source and remains one of the oldest computer games still actively developed, with new features and bug fixes added by a loose but secretive group of volunteers, commonly called the DevTeam. The DevTeam rarely discusses versions under development in public, and releases new versions without notice. However, they do maintain a list of known bugs. Since NetHack is open source, others are free to release patches to the game between official, versioned releases.NetHack was originally created with only a simple ASCII graphical user interface, although the option to use something more elaborate was added later in its development. Interface elements — environment, entities, and objects — are represented by arrangements of ASCII or Extended ASCII glyphs used in plain text, "DEC graphics" or "IBM graphics" mode. In addition to the environment, the interface also displays character and situational information.
Enhanced graphical options also exist, such as the isometric perspective of Falcon's Eye and Vulture's Eye, or the three-dimensional rendering that noegnud offers.
Nethack has an IRC channel, #nethack, on the Freenode network. Many people discuss the game there and with the resident announcer "Rodney" telling every death and announcing full moons, very little is missed.