As an exemplar of the traditional "roguelike" game, NetHack features turn-based, grid-based hack and slash and dungeon crawling gameplay, procedurally generated dungeons and treasure, and permadeath, requiring the player to restart the game anew should the player character die. The game uses simple ASCII graphics by default so as to display readily on a wide variety of computer displays, but can use curses with box-drawing characters, as well as substitute graphical tilesets on machines with graphics. While Rogue, Hack and other earlier roguelikes stayed true to a high fantasy setting, NetHack introduced humorous and anachronistic elements over time, including popular cultural reference to works such as Discworld and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
As an exemplar of the traditional "roguelike" game NetHack features turn-based grid-based hack and slash and dungeon crawling gameplay procedurally generated dungeons and treasure and permadeath requiring the player to restart the game anew should the player character die The game uses simple ASCII graphics by default so as to display readily on a wide variety of computer displays but can use curses with box-drawing characters as well as substitute graphical tilesets on machines with graphics While Rogue Hack and other earlier roguelikes stayed true to a high fantasy setting NetHack introduced humorous and anachronistic elements over time including popular cultural reference to works such as Discworld and Raiders of the Lost Ark