Falcon's Eye

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.

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 has been praised for improving NetHack's visuals and audio to an almost commercial level. In 2003 NetHack: Falcon's Eye received The Linux Game Tome's Best Free Role-Playing Game award. A 2008 review of Vulture's Eye on gamesetwatch.com called the graphics "well done". Linux Journal noted the game as among some of the best free games available in 2010.

Between 2001 and March 2018 Falcon's Eye was downloaded nearly 580,000 times from SourceForge while by March 2018 Steamspy reported over 22,000 owners of Vulture for Nethack purchased via Steam.