It was a cold winter day in 1986-a snowy day actually and both my brother and I were stuck at home because of the insane drifts and blustery weather. I ha d just finished my breakfast of Honeycombs and wandered upstairs to see what he was doing. I could hear the loud hum of his 286 IBM PC through his closed door. I deftly, as usual, picked his door lock with a small screwdriver and let myself in.



His face was glued to the green computer screen, an eery sickly green glow. His fingers clacked away at the noisy keyboard in a familiar rhythmic pattern. The clacking slowed down and my eyes widened: this usually meant caution for risk of being killed by whatever monster had him tracked down. A few seconds later my brother sighed in exasperation and a familiar screen flashed up. I was only 4, not even in kindergarten yet, and could barely read a few words but I knew what that sentence meant word for word. "Here Lies Freddie. Killed by a Quagga on Level 18."


Rogue was a computer game written back in 1980 by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold. It was first written on Unix, and distributed with Version 4.2 of BSD (Berkeley Standard Distribution) UNIX which contributed greatly to its burgeoning popularity. Later Rogue was ported by Michael Toy and Jon Lane to the IBM PC, and then by Michael Toy to the Macintosh. It is considered the father of all past and modern-day dungeon-crawlers and was a rare instance of a game that launched a genre.

Rogue was basically a 2D Dungeon Crawler that starred a hero, (named Rodney if none was chosen upon start), whose mission was to travel deep into the Dungeons of Doom and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. If you made it out again with this amulet you would be victorious. No easy feat indeed. The graphics were completely ASCII-based and the dungeons were randomly generated every game. No two were ever the same and one had to play strategically different from session to session. The dungeon was also full of monsters, 26 in all, one for every letter of the alphabet. Each was unique and some had special abilities, such as the Ice Monster's who could freeze you in place for a few turns or the Aquator's vicious metal armor-weakening attacks. The monsters only got more difficult to defeat the deeper you delved. Add to this the dungeon was also filled with traps, pitch-black rooms and hidden doors you wonder how one could ever make it to the amulet and back.



There was, however, a fantastic variety of things one could find in the dungeons. Items such as potions, weapons, magic scrolls, wands, rings, armor and food rations. Oh yes you had to eat in Rogue, or you would become hungry, faint and eventually pass out and starve to death. The item system was incredibly complex, with different types of armor being better suited to certain types of monsters. Armor and weapons could be enchanted or cursed, the former allowing for better protection while the latter penalized the player and also did not allow them to remove the item. Wands could be zapped with different effects such as filling a room with light, sending out a searing bolt of lightning or even poly-morphing a monster. Rings could be blessed or cursed as well. Scrolls could cast spells, potions could aid or harm a player as well. Every game was as unique as could be, and it was fun to play. It took the best elements of RPGs such as D&D and text-based-adventures and kept the action and exploring at the forefront.

Although it shares a lot in common with Dungeons & Dragons, Rogue was not as heavily influenced by it as one would think. Willie Crowther's early text-based game, Adventure (aka ADVENT or Colossal Cave), the very game which inspired Warren Robinett's Atari title by the same name.

Since I started playing Rogue that cold and fateful winter day, I have YET to beat it. And I have played every year since 1986. I have played many different versions over the years and each added something a little different or special to their respective versions. NetHack is the most popular and is still updated and avidly played today.

As you can see from the above diagram games such as Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM), Angband and Moria have sprung out from Rogue, each different and unique in their own way. ADOM added multiple ways to win the game, ten races, twenty character classes, character development and a talent system. Angband is based heavily on JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings setting, (named for the LOTR fortress of the same name) featuring a 100-level dungeon that focuses on combat and tactics. Notably the length of Angband games is much greater than its cousins, with the possibility of some games lasting weeks. Moria is a much similar game but incorporates a town with shops (not much unlike Castlevania II: Simon's Quest where the player can stock up between levels of the dungeon.

Countless other variations and spin offs of these Roguelike evolutions have emerged over the years, sometimes only modifying a few rules for added fun, strategy or difficulty and other times adding whole new aspects to the game play. While a majority of Roguelikes are set in a fantasy or medieval setting it is important to mention that not all share this similarity. One such game is is Doom: The Roguelike. Based on the FPS of the same name it could be considered a top-down "third-person-shooter." I've played it myself a few years back and found it pretty fun.

Dwarf Fortress, while at first a hard game to grasp and learn, is one of the most rewarding free games out there today. There are two main modes of play: Adventurer and Dwarf Fortress. Adventurer mode allows the player to quest with the main goal being to survive the dungeons, countryside and towns they may encounter. The real meat is however the alternate mode. Dwarf Fortress starts a player off with 7 dwarves who set out to start a kingdom of their own. there are city-building elements similar to SimCity and Dungeon Keeper where a player can carve out and design their underground fortress and set up room designations and even traps. Each dwarf has its own unique personality, traits and professions greatly enhancing the game play possibilities. Recently a graphical version of Dwarf Fortress has been released making the game much easier to learn. It's worth a look by any gamer who enjoys RPGs, RTSes or just a fun solid game. Dwarf Fortress showcases the complexity that roguelikes have evolved into and the different directions they can take over the course of two decades.



The most popular, and by all means complex, roguelike once again definitely goes to NetHack. It was released in 1987 and a successor to the original Hack in 1982. "Net" refers to the internet-collaboration that has been a major part of the development over the years. Hack is an improved version of Rogue, which introduced pets and shops as well as expanded the catalog of monsters, items, and spells. NetHack has the distinction of being one of the oldest open-source games still updated today. It consisted of 45-50 dungeon levels including some preset "fixed" levels very similar to set pieces such as the Butcher from Diablo. The game brought a level of complexity and strategy unparalleled in the genre and coined the terms YAASD and YAAD. (Yet Another Stupid/Annoying Death) As the acronymns suggest there are many ways to die in NetHack, some pretty hilarious in their own right. For instance one may die by trying to saddle a petrifying monster or falling through a trapdoor and having your pet pony land on you. While Rogue is a difficult game to beat mastering NetHack will make a player feel like a God.

Most roguelikes have traditionally been a top-down 2d view, using ASCII text to symbolize graphics, and many add-ons have been developed which modernize the game and make diving into it a bit easier than learning what a bunch of obscure characters represent. Two of the most popular are a Win32 Port and the now-defunct Falcon's Eye. The Win32 Port added graphical tiles and a sleeker Windows interface while Falcon's Eye create a graphical 3-D top-down isometric view as well as added mouse and sound support. Falcon's Eye was discontinued but has been picked up again in an alternate version dubbed Vulture's Eye.



There have been many references in this article to other games that share similarities with Rogue and its roguelike brethren and for good reason. Many of the games we know and love today stem from the roots of Rogue. Chances are if you're a gamer you don't even know how Rogue has touched your gaming lives. Diablo II, .hack, Everquest, Ultima Online, Fallout and Knights of the Old Republic all display unmistakable traits of the text-based classic-certainly enough to suggest a common heritage. The simple fact is that no matter how today's gamers choose to hack and slash their way to statistical nirvana, they're all still Rogues deep down.

~PetiePal~

Further Reading
Interview with Glenn Wichman, Creator of Rogue
Roguelike Games Homepage
Large List Of Roguelikes
Epyx Commercial Version Of Rogue
**The Original Rogue I Play And Recommend**