Dungeon Hacks Audiobook By David L. Craddock cover art

Dungeon Hacks

How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games

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Dungeon Hacks

By: David L. Craddock
Narrated by: Mike Rylander
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In 1980, computers were instruments of science and mathematics, military secrets and academia. Stern administrators lorded over sterile university laboratories and stressed one point to the wide-eyed students privileged enough to set foot within them: Computers were not toys.

Defying authority, hackers seized control of monolithic mainframes to create a new breed of computer game: the roguelike, cryptic, and tough-as-nails adventures drawn from text-based symbols instead of state-of-the-art 3-D graphics.

Despite their visual simplicity, roguelike games captivate thousands of players around the world. From the author of the best-selling Stay Awhile and Listen series, Dungeon Hacks introduces you to the visionaries behind some of the most popular roguelikes of all time and shows how their creations paved the way for the blockbuster video games of today - and beyond.

©2015 David Craddock (P)2015 Audiobooks.com Video Game
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There's good research in this book, though the chapters feel inconsistent. I often felt like I was reading filler, and other areas felt underdeveloped. When Craddock got good anecdotes from his interviews with the original developers, he included them. The rest of the time, he filled the pages with descriptions of how the games played. Some of it was interesting, other parts felt unnecessary.

I would have loved to read more about what became of these developers. Where did they work after that? Did their formative years working on Rogue, Hack, NetHack, Moria, Angband, and such have much influence on their professional careers? I think the book could have explored more of the modern Roguelike games beyond ADOM, not from listing games after games, but how Rogue and its successors influenced more titles beyond just Diablo or FTL.

Overall I still enjoyed the book. It's an interesting account of a niche segment of computer and gamedev history and definitely a recommended read for anyone involved in RPG or Roguelike/lite game development.

Interesting history of Rogue and other roguelikes

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great topic, well narrated. love Angband and this book reminded me why! definitely worth a listen.

awesome!

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Simply amazing. I've loved these games for many years, but had no idea how interesting the history of their creation would be. Any person calling themselves a gamer should listen to this book and try these games.

A nostalgic look at an accidental classic

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I enjoyed it. I'm a big NetHack, FTL, Rogue Legacy fan and if you know what those things are you'll probably enjoy it too.

Excellent

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I still have a few chapters left but loving this book and the narration is very well done. Will update with full review once done.

Avid Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Nethack and Angband player.

Awesome insight into the history of Roguelikes.

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