First NetHack bot ascension

Jan K · 19.8K views · 2015-01-31 · 24:44

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2015–2022

Topics

Speedrunning, glitches & game hacking AI & data (other)Gaming culture & analysis

What people said

fjarlq · 2015-02 · Recommendation
Video of the winning game: [VIDEO] The author's list of milestones illustrates the key components of this achievement, as well as some limitations: [LINK] Awesome work, Jan Krajicek!
Read the original HN comment ↗

jka · 2022-06 · Reference
I wasn't able to find out about that, from a quick scout around - could you share a link to it? (I did find BotHack[1] and a video of its' first ascension[2], both of which are cool) [1] - [LINK] [2] - [VIDEO]
Read the original HN comment ↗

bhaak · 2019-01 · Reference
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 [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.
Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Jan K, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks

SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources