Super Lotsa Added Stuff Hack, Extended Magic: NetHack 3.4.3 with new roles, races, branches and techniques, played in the browser.

SLASH'EM (Warren Cheung and the SLASH'EM team; 0.0.7E7F3 from 2006 is the last release) is a big variant of NetHack 3.4.3. It adds roles (Flame Mage, Ice Mage, Necromancer, Undead Slayer, Yeoman and more), races (Drow, Hobbit, Vampire, Lycanthrope, Doppelganger), class techniques, hundreds of new monsters and items, and extra branches and special levels. The goal is still NetHack's: bring the Amulet of Yendor up to the Astral Plane. Death is permanent.

• About the game
• Keyboard controls
• Saving your game
• Tips
• New player's guide
• Playing in the browser

About the game

SLASH'EM starts from NetHack 3.4.3, so the basics are the same: levels are kept when you leave them, most items are unidentified until used, and almost everything interacts. On top of that it adds more roles and races, a technique per role, many new monsters, items and spells, extra branches and special levels, shopkeeper services, and a harder early game. Knowledge from NetHack carries over; expect surprises anyway.

Keyboard controls

Essential keys

Saving your game

• Saving is automatic. While the game waits for a command it writes a checkpoint, and the browser keeps it (IndexedDB). If the tab is closed or crashes, reloading the page recovers the game in place.
• S saves the game and ends the session; reload the page (or press Play again) to continue exactly where you were.
• When your character dies or you quit, the save is gone: death is final.
• Each browser keeps one game. New character deletes it and starts over.
• Export save downloads the save file (after S); Import save loads one back, also in another browser.
• Private windows and "clear site data" delete the stored game: export first if it matters.

Tips

• For a first game a Valkyrie or Samurai is still the easy start; the new Undead Slayer is sturdy too. Avoid Necromancers and Doppelgangers until you know the game.
• Every role has techniques: check them with #technique (Alt+T) early. They recharge over time, so use them.
• Monsters hit harder than in NetHack and some appear much earlier: fight in corridors, and leave a level that feels wrong.
• Keep your pet: it fights for you and shows which items are cursed.
• Pray only in real trouble (hit points under a seventh of the maximum, or Weak from hunger), and not again for about a thousand turns.
• Shopkeepers offer services (identify, uncurse, weapon upgrades) through p when you have gold.
• Never melee a floating eye, and never touch a cockatrice bare-handed.

New player's guide

Your first steps

1. Type a name, then answer n to "Shall I pick…?" to choose role, race and alignment (a human Valkyrie is easiest).
2. Look at your gear in the Inventory window, and at your techniques with #technique.
3. Explore with ~, with your pet following. Walk into monsters to fight, pick things up with ,.
4. Search dead ends (s), then press > to walk to the stairs and go down.
5. Press S to save; reload the page to continue.

Staying alive

• Rest (20s) before going down, and don't hurry: the first few levels already hold dangerous monsters.
• Eat corpses of fresh kills, but not cockatrices, and nothing old.
• Pray when in real trouble (very low HP, Weak), not for small things.
• Try unknown potions and scrolls at full health with no monster around; shops tell you prices and can identify for gold.
• Elbereth works as in NetHack 3.4.3: E - Elbereth in the dust scares most monsters while you stand on it.

Playing in the browser

• The map is drawn with SLASH'EM's own 16×16 tiles. A− / A+ on the Map title bar (shown on hover) change the tile size, Tiles switches to the game's characters; Windows hides, shows and rearranges the windows (drag a title bar, drag the gaps).
• Keys: hjklyubn or the arrow keys move you (Home, PgUp, End, PgDn for the diagonals); capital letters run. Alt+letter gives the M- commands. Click the map to travel there; click a menu row to pick it.
• Sound and Music in the top bar are off at first: Sound plays short effects (hits, misses, doors, "You hear", stairs, level up), Music a town tune in Minetown and in shops. The choice is remembered.
• Browsers keep a few shortcuts for themselves (Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, and Cmd shortcuts on a Mac), so those never reach the game.
• If the game ever crashes, a message appears at the top; reload the page to recover from the last checkpoint.

About this version

• SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F3 (the SLASH'EM team, 2006), source tarball se007e7f3.tar.gz from sourceforge.net/projects/slashem.
• Our changes (auto-explore, stairs walking, command menu, inventory item menus, window port, checkpoints, sound, web build) are in github.com/memmaker/slashem, one commit per topic on top of the pristine tarball.
• Tiles: SLASH'EM's own tile set; sounds and music are synthesized for this port (web/mksounds.py, public domain). Licence: NetHack General Public License.