The Nethack Disgrace

Towards the end of 2006 I made an attempt to ascend in Nethack. Ascending in Nethack is the equivalent of getting an A+ winning against the. I would occasionally take screenshots of the many games I played. I hoped, with every screenshot, I had snapped a collection of pictures to chronicle my ascension, and completion, of Nethack. I played a lot of games of Nethack, most of them failures. (My graveyard of failed adventures.) I failed so many times I stopped taking screenshots of the early adventures of my characters. During one game, I realized that I actually had a chance of winning. Partway through this particular game I took up the habit of screenshooting again. I made silly notes about each screenshot I took, many notes taken during a sleep deprived gaming session.

After a long adventure, I beat Nethack in a way that was satisfying enough to put the game down and still feel fulfilled. Should anyone be interested in my Nethack adventure, I've posted the screenshots, and the (uncensored) notes here.

We meet up with our intrepid Jim the 78th in the midst of his adventure.

Much has happened, and we find our hero heading back to finish off the final level of sokoban, with a happy god and a dead dog. We shed a tear for our first dead pet, the polymorphed kitty we started with, and our new cat will keep us company from here on. New cat needs a name... how about Bonehead.

Wow... somewhere along the way I pissed off my god. Don't remember what I did, but I've spent 1/2 hour atoning and it's not working. I did something bad.

OOoops, shocking sphere + tough cat = dead cat. Better than dead Jim.

Love my pets. Got a nice little Tame Gnome lord from a figurine.

Alrighty, here's what I know I now have: Fire Resistance, Poison Resistance, Cold Resistance, Magic Resistance (not intrinsic), a Luckstone (Good, bad, don't yet know), lots of loot, and time to crawl back up.

Being able to write my own spellbook of identify on a blessed blank book, then cast it really does equal out a lot of the wizard weaknesses. First time I've ever done it. It's quite cool.

Cool! Got a gift of stealth from Anhur. Maybe if I go slay some roaches I'll get a gift of penile enlargement from Blackflag....

Another wish, and now we have the amulet of reflection. Need that eye of something or other next.

Level 14, thank you Mr. Wraith. Time to pause for a bit of sleep at 6:25am on Sunday morning.

At Dungeon Level 20, Jim becomes a sensitive new age guy.

This picture is taken after tripping a portal to Fort Luidos, mistakenly assuming my horse had tripped a teleportation trap somewhere else. This might be my last will and testament, and if I die, I'll leave all my items in a bonesfile to Dweeb's descendents.

Putting on my blindfold, I see lots of annoying monsters, including my first real dragons. Good thing I have all my resistances... except shock (shit).

Phew, the portal is not a one way portal. I'll be back ;)

Had an extra potion of enlightenment that I didn't turn into water. Not bad. Wish I could get stoning resistance, but I've got a stockpile of lizards, just in case.

Couldn't just let the finding the quest portal go, now I am carrying too much stuff to really do this.

Back home for a bit of R&R... and gearing up to complete my quest.

FOD (aka. Finger of Death). I'm a bad motherfucker.

Perhaps a bit arrogant, but I now have my treasure escape box.

Quest completed, time to head over to the fort to get some armor improvements (this is some pretty shitty armor).

JUIBLEX DEAD! YEAH BABY! (If you haven't heard my story, years ago when I was playing an older version of nethack, or rogue... i forget which, Juiblex is what took me out of my best game. Vengeance is good!)

Spock, beam up the dilithium crystals!!!! (Note, they can be gained from polymorphing, evidently)

INTERMISSION. A lot has happened since the last picture, including some demon killing, medusa killing and lowering my AC.

A lot has happened since the last picture, including some demon killing, medusa killing and lowering my AC.

Including accidently breaking a wand of cancelation over my head...
Inside my treasure trove...
within range of my magic item stash....
A true game of nethack would finish there. I'm going to work through it anyway until I die/screw up in a non-bad-keypress way, a bit behind from my backup save (that unfortunately happened before Medusa and the arch lich killing... gotta do that over). But the fanatical journey would have ended there, so consider this a bookmark for the purists.

First master mind flayer dead... shit these guys are hard. I need some genocide scrolls.

Get rid of trolls: drop into water :)

Gotten paranoid in my old age. Two wishes and got three blessed genocide scrolls. The following have been genocided:

Dead priest of moloch. Thank you cockatrice.

Made it to hell. About time... time to actually go work now.

Good bye rust monsters and disenchanters. One blessed scroll of genocide left for emergencies.

Why save wishes. One life to live, buy everything now. (Last wish which dusted my wand went to gauntlets of power).

Wow, peaceful asmodeus. It's good to be chaotic.

Dead Asmodeus, but Baalzebub gets to live. Paid him off.

Mr. Black Dragon ends Orcus' existence! KAPLOW!

The bottom, and the vibrating square.

Ouch, two candles shy and Izchak is out of them. Not willing to kill Izchak, it's time to polymorph shit.

Good, nothing required is missing (aka. I won't have to lose this game because I couldn't find a CANDLE!)

No more polymorph wands, no polymorph spells, I believe the polypiling for this game is now complete. Time to prep for the final showdown.

Well, no matter how it turns out, I got the cat, and the cat was alive ;)

Just figured it out... Chaotics don't get to kill peaceful creatures like I thought. In Gehenom I got tired of all the peaceful gremlins hopping in the water and getting in my way. I killed them... all of them... every single one. Made a donation and reset my massively negative alignment to zero.

DO THE NURSE DANCE!!! Had to try it. 319 HP to start with....

53 HP in about 8 minutes, not bad, although there are some scary monsters waiting to kill me. Secret to nurse dancing = wield and unwield a weapon every now and then. Seems to speed things up. And smack the nurses around, they seem to respond to S&M.

Final annoying prep excitement... enchanted magicbane to plus 3... yuck.

Got charm monster, but was not able to squeeze out a cone of cold book. Time to pack up for the final trek out of here.

I bid my home goodbye. Time to drop off my final treasure and then kill the wizard.

Wizard of Yendor dead, now it's ON!

Wizard death #2.

Okay, this totally sucks. Fucking TWO WIZARDS OF YENDOR APPEAR AND STEAL MY SHIT!!!

Fuck the stupid fucking wizard(s). All your charmed monsters are belong to me.

Wow, now that was actually hard. Two dead wizards of Yendor. BOO YAH!

Honest to Anhur, didn't think I'd actually make it without cheating.

Wow, I've got the wizard of Yendor from hell! Although, from here on out I'm happy. I really have never made it this far in my wildest dreams.

Another dead wizard, and the air level!

Air plane, OOOOUUCH! Fire plane, easy. Water plane, no problem. Almost time for the Astral Level.

Last plane, oh my god!!!! Water not too hard, just needed patience. No more ring of conflict... time to bust out the teleport wands.

And for those who like a more classic view of what my level looks like, blindfolded.

Wrong one... grrr.

Oooops, all that fucking god damn work and I didn't actually ascend because <insert terets here>. FUCK!!!!!! Okay, well that's fine with me. Considering that fucking goddamn high priest should have given it away... FUCK!!!!! Anway, here's what's up for my final non-ascension:



Goodbye Jim the Wizard...

You were level 30 with a maximum of 264 hit points when you escaped.

Final notes from the logfile

No 1 Points 3196690 HP 148 max [264]
Jim-Wiz-Hum-Mal-Cha escaped the dungeon in celestial disgrace.