wtf is nethack-android?

isene/nethack-android — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

★ 2CAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((NetHack Android))
    What it does
      Full NetHack 5.0 port
      Touch screen controls
      Tiles or ASCII display
    Tech stack
      C engine
      Android NDK
      ForkFront frontend
    Use cases
      Play NetHack on mobile
      Build APK from source
      Study touch UI porting
    Audience
      Roguelike players
      Android hobbyists
    Status
      Archived
      Superseded by active fork

mindmap root((NetHack Android)) What it does Full NetHack 5.0 port Touch screen controls Tiles or ASCII display Tech stack C engine Android NDK ForkFront frontend Use cases Play NetHack on mobile Build APK from source Study touch UI porting Audience Roguelike players Android hobbyists Status Archived Superseded by active fork

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Play the full NetHack 5.0 game on an Android phone or tablet with touch controls.

REASON 2

Build a custom NetHack Android APK from source using the Android NDK.

REASON 3

Study how a classic terminal-based C game was ported to a touch screen front end.

What's in the stack?

CJavaAndroid NDK

How it stacks up

	isene/nethack-android	alisharafiiii/sauron-eye	code-my-spec/ear_witness
Stars	2	2	2
Language	C	C	C
Setup difficulty	moderate	hard	hard
Complexity	3/5	5/5	4/5
Audience	general	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Archived and superseded, building from source requires the Android NDK.

NetHack General Public License: a permissive license allowing free use, modification, and redistribution, similar in spirit to a BSD-style license.

Wtf does this do

NetHack-Android is a port of the classic dungeon crawling game NetHack, version 5.0, built to run natively on Android phones and tablets. The README states plainly at the top that this project is archived and has been replaced by a different, actively maintained fork made by another developer, and it points users there instead. When it was active, this project aimed to bring the complete NetHack game to Android without cutting any features out. The core game logic is written in C and compiled for Android using the Android NDK, targeting the arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, and x86_64 processor architectures. A separate front end called ForkFront, made by another developer and included directly in this repository, handles the touch screen interface, adding things like tap-to-travel movement, an on-screen directional pad, and configurable command panels so the keyboard-heavy original game can be played with a finger. Players could choose between a 32 pixel tile set redrawn for this version of the game, or the traditional text-only terminal look that NetHack has always used. A soft keyboard is available for typing any commands that do not fit on the touch controls. The app runs entirely offline with no ads and no tracking. To install it, users could download a prebuilt APK from the project's releases page, or build the app themselves following instructions kept in a separate file inside the Android specific part of the source tree. The underlying NetHack game itself is made by the NetHack development team, and this Android port credits the ForkFront project and an earlier iPhone port called iNetHack as inspiration. It is released under the NetHack General Public License.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1

This project is archived. Point me to the actively maintained NetHack Android fork it recommends and explain the difference.

Prompt 2

Explain how the C game engine and the ForkFront touch interface fit together in this project.

Prompt 3

Walk me through building this NetHack Android port from source using the Android NDK.

Prompt 4

What Android processor architectures does this port support and why does that matter?

Frequently asked questions