Challenged to retrieve the powerful Amulet of Yendor from a fathomless, monster-plagued dungeon, you’ll discover that the dungeon is actually a randomly-generated configuration of brackets, asterisks and periods; the villainous pit beasts are an assortment of letters (“O” for Orcs, “D” for dragons and so on); and your heroic avatar is nothing more than a cheerfully blinking “@” sign.

But beneath these primitive graphics is a game of such richness and endless variation it usually takes years to master, if at all. —Wagner James Au —The Best Game Ever (Salon)

An old article, from 2000. Today a poster on Slashdot asked for help breaking his girlfriend’s NetHack habit.