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HACK(6) 			   Games 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 iden-
     tify 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 he-
     roes.

     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/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 de-
			       ceased 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 origi-
     nal hack, very much like rogue(6) (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 .

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	 March 31, 1985 			 HACK(6)

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