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First NetHack bot ascension

Jan K
Demos
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2015–2022 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Linked as the canonical video of the first fully automatic NetHack bot ascension in threads on NetHack and game-playing AI.

The BotHack NetHack bot wins the game for the first time with no cheats or human intervention, in a run lasting about 3.5 hours. The description links the source code and the dumplog.

“Video of the winning game” (HN, 2015)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Demos · intermediate

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@fjarlq Feb 2015 Recommends
on HN thread First NetHack bot ascension
Video of the winning game: [this video] The author's list of milestones illustrates the key components of this achievement, as well as some limitations: [link] Awesome work, Jan Krajicek!
Video of the first NetHack bot ascension

Citations, criticism and jokes

@bhaak Jan 2019 Cites it
on HN thread NetHack beaten in 7 minutes 15 seconds real time
Read more
That's why my submission [link] called it a "Tool Assisted Speedrun on NetHack with RNG Exploitation". :-) I'm not sure about the exact terminology. Is an ascension by a bot (like [this video] ) also as a TAS? Although you are right that the group that tried to do a TAS for NetHack (not sure what's their status) chose the MS-DOS port of 3.4.3 for ease of manipulating the RNG in memory and so getting rid of the "hidden information" part. Edit: also in a game like NetHack, there is potential for an automated tool to help the player. InterHack ( [link] ) was an interface layer for 3.4.3 that added lots of useful stuff, e.g. automatic price identification or wand id from engraving. Most of that has since been incorporated in vanilla NetHack or at least forks.
Example of an ascension by a bot

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