About the tonehack Network

Welcome to the tonehack Network! Here you will find helpful guides, videos, references, calculators, and tools for many of the traditional roguelikes I play such as NetHack, Brogue, and Cogmind. You will also find articles, thoughts, and opinions on (roguelike-focused) game design and player strategies. For years I’ve done traditional roguelike focused livestreams and videos while also developing a great community, and this site is a central hub for all of that and also a way for me to share other media.

About tonehack

I am a passionate roguelike player that loves to discuss strategy and game design. I livestream, record videos, and now thanks to this site write and publish guides, articles, references, and whatever else comes out of my mind. One of the major goals of everything I do here is to help “unlock” traditional roguelike games for people in a way that allows them to be enjoyed fully, despite their difficulty and learning curve. Another goal is to fill the void of recorded roguelike content on the internet, and to archive as many recordings of full playthroughs with commentary for different games as possible.

The Backstory

I first started playing NetHack in 2006 and quickly fell in love with it. It remained a constant in my life for over a decade, something that I always returned to at least a few times each year even when I was busy with other things and not playing games much at all. I dabbled with other roguelikes over those years, and sometime around 2016 I wanted to share my love of NetHack and roguelikes so I began offering help and advice in the roguelike and NetHack communities on reddit and discord, and soon started regularly streaming NetHack on Twitch. In December 2018 I uploaded the first video of Tone Plays NetHack, which became a 47 episode series of an entire NetHack ascension which covers many aspects of the game in great detail — this series is still probably what I am most known for in the roguelike community. Here in July 2021 I am now launching the tonehack Network, and looking forward to all the new ways that this site will allow me to continue sharing my passion for roguelikes with other people.

Roguelike Accomplishments

Here’s a short list of some of the games I’ve beaten and other challenges I’ve done, compiled in one place as this is a frequently asked question.

Traditional Roguelikes Ascended

  • Brogue
  • Cogmind
  • Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup
  • Golden Krone Hotel
  • Haque
  • Hoplite
  • IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem, a.k.a. Violent Road to Death)
  • Jupiter Hell
  • NetHack
  • Zorbus
  • And many 7DRLs