Nethack-Recorder / Player Version 1.0

What is Nethack?
If you do not know it, you should go out and learn this first.

It has nothing to do with hacking into other computers. It's a game. It's a good game. I got addicted to it and infected many others with it. It's and ASCII-based one-player fantasy-dungeon game. You know, get your sword, go in, kill monsters, grab treasures, cast spells.

It's freeware, so everybody can copy it. It has been ported to every machine I ever heard of. It's open source, so many people work on improvements. It has a still active development team and so many fans that they build up their own newsgroup (rec.games.roguelike.nethack).

This is not Nethack. I am no member of the development team.
Where can I get Nethack?
Try http://www.nethack.org or perhaps http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/nethack/. In case these links are no longer supported, try the above newsgroup. They can always help you with this.
Ok, I know Nethack, what's this?
This is a utility for Nethack.

First, there is the Nethack-Recorder ("nh_recorder"). It allows you to record your entire Nethack game into a movie file.

Second, there is the Nethack-Player ("nh_player"). It allows you to replay your movie files at different speed or starting from a certain time index. With these two programs you can review your favourite Nethack-games. Watch and enjoy!
How does it work?
The recorder simply gets the standard output from Nethack and, besides from showing it on the screen, stores it in a movie file.

In addition, it measures the elapsed time from the start of the game and everytime it has to wait for input (because Nethack waits for a keystroke) it also saves the time index of the next following character.

With this the movie player not only knows which characters it has to display, but also knows how long it has to wait in between. Thus the movie should run nearly as smooth as the game itself, provided your computer is fast enough not to cough and has an internal clock which also gives fractions of a second.
What do I need?
The binaries are in the package "nh_recorder-1.0.tar.gz" (link will be added soon). They are compiled with the Gnu C-Compiler under Suse-Linux on a Pentium II and tested with Nethack-3.3.0 .

To install them, just unpack them and put the files "nh_recorder" and "nh_player" somewhere in your path, perhaps in your Nethack-folder.

Invoke them with no parameters to get a help message, which explains how to use them. Enjoy!
The binaries don't work. I need the sources!
Since the binaries are compiled for Linux, they will only work there. If you have a different system, you need the sources. The sources are in the package "nh_recorder-1.0.sources.tar.gz" (link will be added soon).

They are written in C and come with a Makefile. Under Suse Linux it's enough just to type "make" to build the binaries.
The sources don't compile!
At the time I wrote this, I had no experience in writing portable code, so the sources will probably not compile well on other systems, like other Unix variants, Macs or MS-DOS. However, I have put much effort in commenting the source, so other programmers might easily adapt it. If you have adapted it yourself to another system, please let me know Helge.Dennhardt@gmx.de
Is this all for free?
Yes, like Nethack it's open source. Copy it. Use it. Always tell people where they can get the sources. Improve it and tell me. Don't change things without marking your changes. Don't expect any warranty. To put it in a legal way: This software is distributed under the Gnu Public License. See the file "license" for details.

Appendix:

When you type "nh_recorder" without any parameters you will get this help message:



This is the Nethack-Recorder Version 1.0
    (C) 2000 by Helge Dennhardt

    SYNTAX:
        nethack | nh_recorder <movie-filename>

    DESCRIPTION:
        With it you can record your Nethack-game into a file, which can
        be replayed later with Nethack-Player Version 1.0 (type "nh_player" to
        get a short help message). Simply redirect the standard output into the
        Nethack-recorder as shown in the above syntax. Enjoy watching your old
        Nethack-games!

    PARAMETER:
        <movie-filename> is the name of the file, in which the movie-information
        is to be stored. For this I suggest ".nh" as file extension for Nethack
        movie files. In case a file with this name already exists, the recorder
        will append to it.

    NOTE:
        I beg you: PLEASE, DON'T POST YOUR MOVIES! They are too big. People
        will get annoyed. If you want to share your Nethack adventures, mail them,
        put them on a website for downloading or post them in the alt.binaries.*
        tree with only a small note in a Nethack newsgroup. Thank you.

When you type "nh_player" without any parameters you will get this help message:



This is the Nethack-Player Version 1.0
    (c) 2000 by Helge Dennhardt

    SYNTAX:
        nh_player [ -s<speed> ] [ -t<days>.<hours>.<minutes>.<seconds> ] <movie-filename>

    DESCRIPTION:
        With it you can play the movie-files generated by the Nethack-Recorder
        Version 1.0 (type "nh_recorder" to get a short help message). Enjoy watching
        your old Nethack-games!

    PARAMETERS:
        -s<speed>
            Here you adjust the speed in which the movies are played.
            Only one digit is allowed, so the speed can range from -s0 (total stop)
            over -s1 (normal speed) up to -s9 (nine times normal speed). Default is -s1.
        -t<days>.<hours>.<minutes>.<seconds>
            Though several speeds are supported, for technical reasons there
            is no rewind. Nevertheless, you can stop the player and with this option
            restart it at a time index you want. For example -t0.1.20.0 will start
            the movie one hour and twenty minutes after its start. Default is -t0.0.0.0
        <movie-filename>
            The filename of the movie you want to play.
    KEYS:
        0-9
            You can change the speed of the movie at any time by hitting
            the appropriate number keys.
        q,Q
            Quits the program.

Have fun!