Room

Rooms are a feature ubiquitous in NetHack- their purpose is analogous to those of real life: eg "An area separated by walls or partitions from other similar parts of the structure or building in which it is located".

In the Dungeons of Doom, your first room of each level is reached by stairs. Exploring Dungeon of Doom levels, you will encounter a number of rooms by way of corridors.

#                                                   #       ---    ---                          -     #..........|    |..........#                         |...........+######|.........|    |.........|#                        #............|     #..*.?.....|    |.........|###                    ###|............######---    |$........|  #   ########+...........|            #    |.........|  ### |.$.........########--+--    ---.-+-    # |..>.......|#  #   ###### ##     ###    ##     ##|..........+####        #  #     #      #        #           ######    ##############################             #  #  --+--####                                    ######  |..@.######################################    #  #  |...| ############################################################## #  |*...##                                          #  ---     -.-.---  -                                            ###|.....|     |..$..|                                                     #......|     |%../.|                                                      |$....+#####+...<.|                                                      ---     ---

Strategy
Finding rooms is not always straight-forward. The key is to be persistent in searching, and be aware that rooms can be as small as 2x3 and hence tucked into places you would not expect them. Knowing the extent of the Dungeon on your screen helps. A Vault is never accessible by corridor or stairs, and must be reached by some other way.

Once in a room you could find any of the monsters or items in the game, but there are basic features in every room.

The Way In
The non-magical entrances to a room can be by open passageway, door, locked door, stairs or hole. Press o to open a door, c to close it. Apply an unlocking tool to open a locked door (or zap via a spellbook of knock or wand of opening). Without an unlocking method a door needs to be destroyed to gain entry. Options are to kick the door down or to apply an axe or pick axe. (or zap via a spellbook of force bolt or wand of striking)

Caution: destroying a shop door will anger the shopkeeper and probably result in YASD. So be careful with corner rooms with only one entrance- their likely location.

The Floor
The floor in the parts of a room you can see are marked with a. Dark areas are blank. It is possible for a room to be a swamp, where pools {{blue| } }} alternate with. Although the floor can have a vast variety of things on it, the only feature of the floor itself are stairs, certain traps and any engravings on the ground.

The Walls
The walls are marked by vertical and horizontal lines. Often these can be ASCII characters (eg and ). At other times these will be drawn lines, complete with corners. Walls have no features, except for doors and secret doors.

The Ceiling
Due to the position altering effects of gravity, you tend to have little to do with the ceiling and it is not visible on the map. It is a very rocky place, and the main feature of the ceiling is rock. Some of these drop on you by traps or other player actions. A levitating character can sometimes hit the ceiling. Other features include stairs and certain other traps.

Special Rooms and other Dungeon Features
Be sure to make yourself familiar with the various special rooms and dungeon features found among the levels of NetHack which can make or break your game.