[NTLK] NewtHack

[Eric Hill]

Howdy folks,

Back in 1996-97 a fellow named Christopher Dopp created a very cool roguelike for Newtons called Newthack. He even created a sound package for it to really give the game some juice. You start with a character stats screen where you can re-roll your attributes before you start hackin' and slashin' your way through the dungeon of doom.

The problem:
The game found anywhere online is (of course) the shareware version. Once you complete Level 1, the game abruptly ends. You can only continue if you have a software key.

That last version of NewtHack is 1.1.

There is an 8-digit key found on Google Groups and elsewhere but it is for v1.0. The code for v1.0 doesn't work with 1.1.

Does anyone here have either 1) a registered copy PKG of 1.1 they could extract or 2) an 8-digit registration key for NewtHack 1.1? Total shot in the dark but worth a try.

Back in 2021, I actually contacted the original software dev to even offer to buy a key all these years later. He responded and told me he was unable to recover the Zip disk that had the original source for the project, but he appreciated the flashback. He also mentioned that he was totally fine with someone hacking the game if anybody wanted to give that a shot to bypass the registration code. He even asked me to let him know if anyone was ever successful!

Anyone have a key? If not, does anyone have ultra-rare version 1.0 (which is nowhere to be found online)? I've been told that version 1 was only available for a very short time before 1.1 was published, hence why there seems to be zero trace of it anywhere. Except, maybe, on someone's Newton! 


Thanks!
Eric