Life is like Nethack
Mars help me, I’ve started playing Nethack. This classic game, originally released in 1987, is considered by some to be “one of the oldest games still being developed."1 Of its predecessor, Rogue, legendary hacker Dennis Ritchie “was quoted as saying that Rogue wasted more CPU time than anything in history."2 …And Nethack is much, much more addictive. If you could quaff Nethack, it would be a potent potable.
One of its players’ main sayings is “TDTTOE,” or, The Dev Team Thinks of Everything. It’s true—you fall down the stairs when carrying too much stuff, you may die when you eat or drink questionable items, your god gets angry at you if you sacrifice your pet at an altar (“So this is how you repay loyalty?”), you can hallucinate and hear the TV audience applaud, and other amusing stuff. It’s got a charm and humor in a Douglas Adams kind of way.
It’s also kind of punishing. Wave after wave of merciless enemies attack. Intelligent foes confuse and disarm. Whether careful or careless, unforeseen circumstances can kill, disable, or burden you or your beloved pet. Panic awakes in you as you struggle to find food not yet cursed by some faceless machine. And if you die, that’s it, you fret your hour upon the stage and are heard from no more (which ironically happens to your social life the more you play Nethack). Your gravestone will read: “REST IN PEACE dave, killed by a kitten.” Someone else’s may read: “Made in Taiwan.” You gathered lots of loot, and you can’t take it with you.
But in the end you feel you’ve received a rewarding experience. You used your wits and past experiences to navigate challenging situations and lived according to your moral or ethical standards (conscious choices include being vegetarian or pacifist; monks receive bonuses for going without food), and you had a good time for as long as Fate would grant you. And in the end, aren’t these among the best things life has to offer?
Maybe it’s silly to compare an 80’s computer game to real life. “It’s just a game,” you might say… and you’d be right. Still, I can’t help but entertain the idea that maybe since all things come from our world, they describe it in some small way. Maybe existence itself is inherently meta.
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