Give a man a fish
Teach a man to fish
Turn a man into a fish

Nethack is a very old fashioned video game, but it has an interesting mechanic: the real world date on your computer affects your character’s luck in the dungeon.

“How bad can it be?”, I thought about a decade ago, loading a new game on Friday the 13th.

I took a single step.

“Your kitten has been crushed by a boulder.”

there's also code in the game to make things easier or harder, respectively, on a full and a new moon. for the most part they aren't too drastic, but the new moon does make a certain almost-instakill event much more likely. if you know, you know.

also, Friday the 13th can occur simultaneously with these moon phases, which happens infrequently enough that there's a small two-column chart on the NetHack Wiki detailing the days where Friday the 13th and a full/new moon overlap.

so, the hardest days to play NetHack are/were:

• September 13, 1996
• August 13, 1999
• November 13, 2015
• July 13, 2018
• October 13, 2023. challenge runners take note

it’s coming

this has been an alert. thank you

how do i call them to tell them it worked