Hack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe a play style in tabletop role-playing games, carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general. In console- and arcade-style video games, the usage specifically implies a focus on combat with hand-to-hand weapons. In other contexts it is more general, and an archer or unarmed martial artist may participate as fully in a hack and slash game, or be as hack-and-slash oriented as an individual, as an armed melee fighter. Both variations of the term are often written in hyphenated form and with the conjunction contracted, e.g. hack-and-slash, hack 'n' slay.
Famous quotes containing the words hack and and/or hack:
“O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“Painting consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)