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GnollHack

GnollHack Logo

A NetHack variant developed by Sound Mind Games, a non-profit association based in Finland.

Highlights

  • Improved Graphical Interface — Large 64x96 tiles with many advanced features. Monsters can be up to 192x192 pixels in size.
  • Animations — All characters have attack and kick animations, and spellcasters have also spell casting animations. Spell effects and traps have been animated.
  • Advanced Sound System — Over 1100 game sounds that are played using FMOD and an internal sound set system.
  • Voice Acting — Voice acting for various game characters and relevant game events. Over 5000 voice over lines.
  • Gameplay Improvements — New magic system, new wearable slots, new mythic property system for items (prefixes and suffixes), new weapon quality classes, all item commands accessible from the inventory menu, in-game information for items and monsters, new status lines showing pet information, and a huge number of quality-of-life improvements, such as a pet pathing algorithm.
  • Platform Support — Android, iOS, Windows, and Linux.

See Detailed Features for more information. You may also want to read How GnollHack differs from NetHack.

Download

Android

Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.

View Supported Android Devices.

iOS

TestFlight is Apple's app for beta testing iOS apps.

Requires 3 GB RAM but may work with 2 GB RAM. View supported iPhones and iPads.

Please enable Share iPhone/iPad Analytics with App Developers to share crash logs with us.

Windows Binaries (64-bit)

macOS and Linux

You must use Wine or PlayOnMac to run the Windows program. We are investigating possibilities of porting the graphical user interface code to Linux and macOS.

Installation Instructions

Windows 64-bit

  1. Download the zip file attached to the latest release.
  2. Unzip it to a folder on your computer.
  3. Click GnollHackW.exe to play.

macOS and Linux

Install Wine or PlayOnMac to run the Windows program, and then follow Windows instructions.

Choosing the Right Difficulty Level

GnollHack has 7 difficulty levels:

  • Standard — You are new to GnollHack
  • Experienced — You have some experience with GnollHack
  • Adept — You are averagely experienced in GnollHack
  • Veteran — You have lots of experience with GnollHack
  • Expert – You are expert at GnollHack
  • Master — You are a GnollHack professional
  • Grand Master — You are a GnollHack professional looking for ultimate challenge

If you are new to GnollHack and NetHack, we recommend starting with the Standard difficulty.

If you are a NetHack veteran but new to GnollHack, we recommend starting with a difficulty between Experienced and Expert. Easier difficulties allow you to learn new mechanics and mitigate some of the additional hardships that come from not being familiar with them. Even though the Expert difficulty has an unadjusted combat difficulty, it can feel more intense than NetHack especially in the end game. Therefore, starting with one of the easier difficulties can be a good choice until you become familiar with the new mechanics in GnollHack.

Gameplay Information

Tutorials (for keyboard-based versions)

These tutorials pertain to the text-based (ASCII) version and the Windows GUI version of GnollHack. Some information in them, though, is relevant to the mobile versions of the game.

Public Servers

You can play the text version of GnollHack on public servers over SSH. Two types of servers are available:

  • GnollHack Servers — We have proprietary GnollHack servers for a streamlined online play experience.
  • Hardfought Servers — GnollHack is also available on Hardfought servers, which host most NetHack variants.

SSH Clients

You need an SSH client to connect to the servers. You can use PuTTY on Windows. On macOS and Linux, you can use the Terminal ssh command.

Development Information

Community

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