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glHack is a port of the game NetHack, using hardware acceleration via OpenGL(R) to render the 2D tile graphics.  It uses LibSDL as the video and input library.  There is good support for software rendering (without OpenGL) as well.

glHack is just one of the many NetHack front-ends.  Others include the original text-terminal (TTY) version, one for the X Window System, and one for GNOME called GnomeHack. 

See the official NetHack website for complete information about the actual game. 
 

GnomeHack was a very nice version of the game...  But the GUI-ness of it (popup windows, scrollbars, etc..) really wasn't to my taste.  So I started work on glHack, to make it feel very similiar to the text-terminal version (nice & snappy). but with graphical tiles. 

glHack can use OpenGL(R) for fast rendering, even with high resolutions like 1024x768.  Like the TTY and DOS versions, glHack runs fullscreen with a black background, and most of the screen is reserved for the map, with a few lines at the top for messages, and a few lines at the bottom for player status. 
 

Comments and questions can be made on the glHack forum.

Bug reports can be made using the glHack bug tracker.  When submitting bugs, please include the following information: the version of glHack, your operating system, and what kind of videocard you have.

Topics should be limited to the glHack front-end, like problems getting it to compile or run, etc...  Questions about playing the game itself should be directed elsewhere, try the official NetHack page.
 

24-Jun-2004

Version 1.2 of glHack has been released.  James Bentler has ported the code to NetHack 3.4.3, and the guidebook too.  The other change is that the TAB key now toggles between tile and text views (in addition to the END key).

5-Mar-2004

I'm no longer working on glHack.  NetHack is not a game I enjoy playing anymore, and there is no motivation to work on something I don't personally use. 

26-Mar-2003

This is one of those "nothing to report" reports.  About a month ago I moved half-way across the country to go to University, and couldn't take my computer with me, and still haven't got one, so I'm unable to work on glHack right now. 

Future plans: mainly just updating glHack to the NetHack 3.4.1 release, and bug fixing / maintenance.  No new features are planned.

8-Jan-2003

Version 1.1 of glHack is now available.  This release now comes with man pages.  Other changes include: autodetection of video mode/depth, colors have been brightened up, better installation under Debian and Mandrake, and lots of small bugs were fixed.

18-Dec-2002

Seemed like time for a status report :)

Many small-ish issues have been addressed recently (for example: compile problems under Mandrake 9.0), and some larger ones (especially the man pages) are being worked on.  The next release should only be a couple of weeks away...

Merry Christmas everybody !

13-Oct-2002

I'm very happy to announce that glHack 1.0 has been released !! 

The big new feature in this release is the Isometric 3D tileset !  These tiles were originally from Slash'EM, but have been extensively edited to improve various aspects (like the explosions) and to make it consistent with glHack's 32x32 tiles. 

Other changes include better mouse support, an option for controlling brightness, and many improvements to the existing 32x32 tileset. 

27-Sep-2002

Status report: stuff is being done, at the moment it is mainly fixing and improving the tilesets.  There are a few small features in the pipeline, like more useful mouse support.  The next release (the big milestone release) should happen in a couple of weeks.

16-Aug-2002

Work is continuing...  For example, there is now a "gamma" option for controlling brightness.  Plus the next version will support something very nice - but I'm not going to spill the beans yet, you'll just have to wait :).  The next release will hopefully occur middle to late September, after I get back from a trip to Sydney. 

27-Jun-2002

glHack version 0.9.5 has been released !  New in this version is the port to NetHack 3.4.0, and perhaps more significantly, an optimised software renderer.  Grab it while it's hot...

23-Jun-2002

glHack has now been ported to NetHack 3.4.0, and that's not all, the software renderer that Allister MacLeod started has also been finished !  Expect a new release very soon.

7-Jun-2002

Porting to NetHack 3.4.0 is currently underway.  Anyone using CVS should be aware that the code, makefiles and tileset now only work against the 3.4.0 codebase (the latest tileset is on the download page).

26-May-2002

Well, the only thing to report is that there's nothing to report :(.   I haven't played NetHack in a while now (two months it seems), and therefore haven't been doing any coding on glHack either.  Maybe I'll get a second wind, but for now it's fair to assume that version 0.9.0 could be the last one.  Even if it were, I'd still be happy because it is fairly feature-complete and stable, the only significant thing lacking is NetHack 3.4.0 support.  Cheers !

27-Mar-2002

The latest release of glHack, version 0.9.0, is now available. 

Changes include: two new fonts, a new text-mode map view, an option for setting video depth (bits per pixel), options to reformat or shrink text windows that are too wide, an alternate history mode (more like TTY version), a border drawn around the map, support for the GLHACKOPTIONS shell variable, fixes for the numeric keypad and ALT keys, and fixed the lost messages bug.