Falcon's Eye

Gameplay

The main change of Falcon's Eye over earlier Nethack variants is a massive improved graphical representation: it switched from a text-based 80x25 terminal representation to a 3D isometric perspective graphical representation. The objects and enemies in the game are no longer represented by minimalistic ASCII characters, but now have actual graphical representations.

Whilst adding some features, such as a path finding tool, Falcon's Eye doesn't alter the NetHack gameplay. Peltonen says that this was to ensure that future versions remain compatible with future releases of NetHack. Falcon's Eye provides a context menu when a creature or item is right-clicked. Users can customize the interface by configuring the keyboard commands or by adding sound effects.

Development

Falcon's Eye was developed by Jaakko Peltonen, a researcher of neural networks at Helsinki University of Technology, originally as a separate engine, and then grafted onto NetHack. The artwork and sound effects are largely his, with some submissions from users. NetHack's code assumes little about the user interface, telling which dungeon maps and messages to display, but leaves the implementation details to the interface. Peltonen explains that this versatility helped him to create Falcon's Eye, as he did not have to work around a fixed character-based interface.

Falcon's Eye is released under the NetHack General Public License.

Falcon's Eye was mostly programmed in C, with some C++ functions. Both SDL and DirectX are used for the graphics and sound in order to make the base code as system-independent as possible.

Development stall

Since the release of version 1.9.3 in 2001, development of Falcon's Eye has not progressed, with the game based on a now out-of-date version of NetHack. In the interim, at least one unofficial update has appeared in the portage package management system.

Peltonen had planned to add more customization options, allowing users to add their own graphics. As some users reported difficulty in compiling and installing Falcon's Eye, he also wished to simplify this procedure. He also envisions an application for NetHack that allows a user to switch between different user interfaces, similar to software skins.

Continuation: Vulture's Eye

The level of inactivity prompted between 2001 and 2005 Clive Crous to fork Falcon's Eye to create Vulture's Eye and Vulture's Claw, which have significant improvements on the original. The development happened on bitbucket, a switch from the previous repository Sourceforge. The game was ported to several platforms, for instance the OpenPandora handheld.

Later it was just called Vulture and is under continued development (as of February 2017). While still being Free and open source software the game is commercialized via the author's website and Desura for $2.99. In October 2013 the game was put into the Steam Greenlight process and successfully released on Steam in January 2016.

Reception

Falcon's Eye has been praised for improving NetHack's visuals and audio to an almost commercial level and has been noted as among some of the best free games available by Linux Journal in 2010. Falcon's Eye was downloaded from Sourceforge alone between 2001 and 2017 577,000 times.

A review in 2008 of Vulture's Eye called the graphics "well done". Steamspy reported in February 2017 21,000 owners of Vulture for Nethack on Steam alone.