You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes

Nethack is one of the original "roguelikes," back when that meant a text-console game based on `rogue`. It's an RPG where your character kills monsters, picks up loot, and descends into the dungeon. If you die, that's it -- you can't just load a save; you have to start all over. It's legendarily unforgiving.

In Nethack, most (all?) roles start with a pet, e.g. a puppy or a kitten. In the early game, your pet is often stronger than you; it follows you, fights monsters, etc. It's useful in many ways beyond fighting: it won't walk over a cursed item, it can "fetch" items from stores without angering the proprietor, and so on. Your pet gains experience and levels up (puppy -> dog -> large dog), and after a certain point you're prompted to give your pet a name.

The message "You have a sad feeling for a moment, then it passes" is displayed when your pet dies while out of sight. It's pretty difficult to keep your pet alive all through the endgame, so much like any real-life pet owner, there will come a time where you have to say goodbye, one way or the other.

> If you die, that's it -- you can't just load a save; you have to start all over. It's legendarily unforgiving.

Ehum...

( $ cp -r /var/games/glhack/saves/1000user /home/user )

( ...suddenly a wild fire ant called Rita appears )

( # cp -r /home/user/1000user /var/games/glhack/saves/ )

( # chown -R user:games /var/games/glhack/1000user )

( $ echo "muahahaha im alive, stupid fire ant" | glhack )

( Pssst, Don't tell it to anybody )

Nethack is notoriously unfair with the player, and not a really winnable game. The player can be killed at any moment without allowing a single defensive move. If I think that the game was cheating, I act accordingly.

The other option is the exploring mode (X), when you can't be killed, but I find that is boring.

Neutral Wizard blessed PYEC, blessed Orb of Fate, blessed magic marker, +3 blessed greased SDSM, BoH, +3 fireproof speedboots, +3 greased fireproof cloak of magic resistance, write out +ID, ?charging, get your Magicbane or better Greyswandir, etc.

No

> "You choke on your food and die after 20200 moves"

> "It seems that you are having a hard time eating this dragon corpse? stop eating?"

Hum... yes?

"You choke on your food and die after 40678789 moves"

Well, this is simply ridiculous.

In the last 20 years playing nethack, consulting the oracle, reading the wiki, and learning, I reached gehennon... once. This is like the 30% of the game or so. Don't even reached a quest. After a while, solving sokoban and gnome mines by the 800 time is just... meh; Wesnoth is better.

The game would greatly benefit of something like: You lose 70 of your 71 points just descending the stairs into a bones level and become stressed, unable to move and surrounded by enemies. This is your last point, do you want to try something?

Or if you want to be really fun, polymorph into a Xorn or whatever and eat a few amulets of magical breathing to gain it as an intrinsic.

https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Amulet_of_magical_breathing

Generally just go through your death list and find what is killing you then look at how to avoid that. Eating random corpses late game is pretty much always a mistake, you should have normal food to rely on in your bag of holding and a blessed tinning kit from the mines for intrinsic granting corpses.

I think that I was even killed by a lichen once