Classic open source dungeon-crawler NetHack has been around since the mid-80s, and it looks like it, thanks to its low quality graphics. In fact, you can even opt to play NetHack using ASCII art instead of tiled graphics. That said, there’s something addictive about this simple game, which probably has something to do with the fact that you can play it over and over and over due to the randomly generated dungeon levels.

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Because NetHack’s graphics-and-text based interface is so lightweight, the game has been ported to a variety of different systems, from computers to mobile devices. Developer Fredrik Farnstrom has ported the game to Google Android, with support for all versions of Android. The game runs particularly well on devices like the Google Nexus One which have a trackball because you can move your character and attack monsters by spinning the ball.

Sure, it may seem silly to play a text-based RPG on a device that can handle 3D RPG graphics beautifully, but NetHack takes up a heck of a lot less disk space than Dungeon Hunter, and thanks to its random level generator, it may offer many more hours of game play.

Android 2.2 users can install the game on their SD card, while all users can store their data files on the SD card.

NetHack for Android is available as a free download from the Android Market.

via Reddit

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since...

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