> NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game that runs on a wide variety of computer systems, with a variety of graphical and text interfaces all using the same game engine. Unlike many other Dungeons & Dragons-inspired games, the emphasis in NetHack is on discovering the detail of the dungeon and not simply killing everything in sight - in fact, killing everything in sight is a good way to die quickly. Each game presents a different landscape - the random number generator provides an essentially unlimited number of variations of the dungeon and its denizens to be discovered by the player in one of a number of characters: you can pick your race, your role, and your gender.
Pick up stuff and run away, not necessarily in that order.
Go shopping. Or have your pet go "shopping" for you.
Have your pet kill things. This removes threats and gets you loot and through maybe half a dozen levels, helping you gear up without leveling up (and yes, eventually you want to level up, but you want to do it very slowly if at all while gearing up, because the faster you level up, the more likely it is the game will generate tough monsters you're probably not ready for, like soldier ants or crowds of orcs with poison arrows).
Try to find your way downstairs while avoiding monsters too dangerous to fight and collect more powerful items. Standard NetHack strategy is that you should try to collect an "Ascension kit" of items and know when to use the tools in it.
