The story of Rogue(spillhistorie.no)
spillhistorie.no
The story of Rogue
https://spillhistorie.no/the-story-of-rogue/
109 comments
That's true of so many things, including science and programming. We can deal with the fact that some people are geniuses and just orders of magnitude better than us, but often it's people who are just slightly better than us in most things that end up doing the thing we want to do before us.
... and the compound interest of being consistently slightly better makes these people much better than others in the long run.
Learning to consistently win nethack completely changed my intuition for low chance risk. Common actions that are 99% reliable but with serious consequences for failure are sure to be run-losing. Even something 99.9% is too dangerous to do more than a handful of times per run if you're trying to streak.
Of course you don't know these numbers directly unless you get deep into the wiki/source. But you don't know the odds when driving on a rainy night either.
Of course you don't know these numbers directly unless you get deep into the wiki/source. But you don't know the odds when driving on a rainy night either.
Nice! Crossing avalanche terrain (eg: backcountry skiing) is a low chance/high consequence activity. It is easy to learn the wrong thing: I did this before and it was fine, therefore it is safe.
You counter that with observations, forecasts and incident reports, but intuition based on personal experience leads you astray.
A game is much better because you can fail and you just have to restart the game. Make an RDR2 mod.
(edit: more intuitive anyway. It might not be easy to accurately show different snow conditions while also being fun to play)
You counter that with observations, forecasts and incident reports, but intuition based on personal experience leads you astray.
A game is much better because you can fail and you just have to restart the game. Make an RDR2 mod.
(edit: more intuitive anyway. It might not be easy to accurately show different snow conditions while also being fun to play)
> He on the other hand would take a route that only involved stepping places where he had stepped the first time through. That way he never sprung any new traps on the way back, unlike people who stepped in new places.
Maybe that gives you a slight edge, but it involves having near perfect recollection where you've stepped. That's not a small feat.
Maybe that gives you a slight edge, but it involves having near perfect recollection where you've stepped. That's not a small feat.
Not if you construct your paths in a systematic way. I think in rogue all rooms are rectangular, so it should be easy enough to construct a memorable réversible algorithm.
Go clockwise, along the walls. Want to reach something in the middle of the room? Go straight down from the top wall. If there's stuff in your way, go around it on the left side if possible, else right.
Go clockwise, along the walls. Want to reach something in the middle of the room? Go straight down from the top wall. If there's stuff in your way, go around it on the left side if possible, else right.
Going along the walls means you'll take far longer to traverse wide and shallow rooms. That means running into more traps and using up more food. This dual pressure of traps and food puts a very strong emphasis on economy of movement. Generally you should be taking the shortest path between points of interest (doorways, loot, stairs).
My bad high score list experience came when I was running rogue under a debugger.
I'd figured out where the score was held, and quickly poked "-1" into it so I wouldn't draw attention to my unconventional approach by getting on the high score list, and then tried to see if I could figure out what was going on with scroll/potion naming...
...and then I quaffed something bad, and died, and when the tombstone came up, I discovered score was unsigned.
I'd figured out where the score was held, and quickly poked "-1" into it so I wouldn't draw attention to my unconventional approach by getting on the high score list, and then tried to see if I could figure out what was going on with scroll/potion naming...
...and then I quaffed something bad, and died, and when the tombstone came up, I discovered score was unsigned.
On the topic of traditional roguelikes, Caves of Qud is getting its 1.0 release tomorrow. Been in development for over 15 years now, and it’s fantastic. Can’t recommend it enough.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/333640/Caves_of_Qud/
Thanks for this notice, I've been periodically checking for years waiting for a full release before allowing myself to dive in. :) Though with Path of Exile coming out Friday, it's a bad time to have a social life...
> I've been periodically checking for years waiting for a full release before allowing myself to dive in.
Huh? It's already released in full. You want development to stop? That would make no sense, and be contrary to the development of pretty much every other roguelike.
Huh? It's already released in full. You want development to stop? That would make no sense, and be contrary to the development of pretty much every other roguelike.
Please don't put words in my mouth. I am referring to the developer's own roadmap, which has been slowly ticking off boxes for years: https://www.cavesofqud.com/roadmap/ Nobody is asking for development to stop. I've been waiting for a game that is, by the developer's own judgment, complete on a fundamental level.
>Huh? It's already released in full.
Nah, 1.0 will add an actual ending to the main quest and then it'll be a full release.
Nah, 1.0 will add an actual ending to the main quest and then it'll be a full release.
Wow I thought it was going to be later next year. Been anxiously awaiting this before starting another play through.
The writing for this game is just something special.
The writing for this game is just something special.
Will the 1.0 release include the switch over to the Godot engine?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/333640/eventcomments/43387350...
Doesn’t look like it, unless something changed since that comment.
Doesn’t look like it, unless something changed since that comment.
I love any opportunity to suggest people try out Brogue. It was developed with the idea "What would have happened if development continued on Rogue?"
Info here: https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/
Repo/downloads here: https://github.com/tmewett/BrogueCE
Info here: https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/
Repo/downloads here: https://github.com/tmewett/BrogueCE
Or many more at https://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Main_Page and https://forums.roguetemple.com, though Brogue is one of the best.
Isn't that Dwarf Fortress?
https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html
https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html
Dwarf Fortress is an amazing management game in fortress simulation mode, but kinda struggles as a Rogue successor. The layers upon layers of simulation don't mesh into a very satisfying experience in adventure mode, imho.
Brogue is somewhat minimalist and very tightly designed. The design of every item, monster, and dungeon in the game is inextricably interwoven into a cohesive whole. It evokes very similar feelings to Rogue while also doing its own thing. Less "continued development of Rogue" and more "Unofficial sequel."
Brogue is somewhat minimalist and very tightly designed. The design of every item, monster, and dungeon in the game is inextricably interwoven into a cohesive whole. It evokes very similar feelings to Rogue while also doing its own thing. Less "continued development of Rogue" and more "Unofficial sequel."
Can't wait to share this with my Dad. He went to MIT in the 1970s where he first encountered Rogue. Some of my earliest memories are sitting on my Dad's lap, watching him repeatedly die to a Troll. It led to a lifetime love of Rogue and Roguelikes/Roguelites/whatever-you-want-to-call-thems.
I just picked up Shiren the Wanderer 5 for the Switch, and it's just the most comfortable experience in the world for me: identifying shields, getting hungry, and dying repeatedly.
I just picked up Shiren the Wanderer 5 for the Switch, and it's just the most comfortable experience in the world for me: identifying shields, getting hungry, and dying repeatedly.
Now I have to look up what's available on Switch. I've tried other Roguelikes, but often they get tedious without a keyboard (Darkest Dungeon, Into the Breach). I still want a game I can play kicking back with the Switch.
I keep going back to Diablo, even on the Switch, because I can just run around and kill stuff. Hades is also good.
I keep going back to Diablo, even on the Switch, because I can just run around and kill stuff. Hades is also good.
My biggest beef with modern roguelikes, including everything you mentioned, is almost none of them make me think, "Wow, this feels like rogue to me". Which is not to say that I don't like some of them, but I like them for completely different reasons.
Tangentially related: As someone who not just played the crap out of Rogue in the early 80s but also Wizardry 1, I was ecstatic to find out recently that the latter was rereleased on modern platforms [1]. It's the original DOS game with some better graphics. They included some new play options to make it less punishing, but one can disable all of them to have the authentic experience
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2518960/Wizardry_Proving_...
Tangentially related: As someone who not just played the crap out of Rogue in the early 80s but also Wizardry 1, I was ecstatic to find out recently that the latter was rereleased on modern platforms [1]. It's the original DOS game with some better graphics. They included some new play options to make it less punishing, but one can disable all of them to have the authentic experience
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2518960/Wizardry_Proving_...
There was a linguistic shift that happened and what the term Roguelike means changed dramatically. Roguelike used to refer to a game based pretty closely on Rogue: procedurally generated dungeons, perma-death, item identification, a hunger mechanic, a specific implementation of turn based combat. Even ASCII graphics were considered necessary for some people. There was an organization formed to police the boundaries of what constituted a Roguelike that was, for better or worse, like the Académie Française in its pedantry.
In Japan, Roguelikes never went out of style in the same way because traditional dungeon crawlers kept being made. So Roguelike elements found there way into games as diverse as Azure Dreams and Baroque.
It took longer for American devs to realize that the basic joys of a Roguelike: the novelty of procedurally generated content, the pressure of permadeath, and the risk/reward tradeoff of trying to go down one more floor. Once indie devs caught the Roguelike bug, it became an epidemic of inserting elements of a Roguelike into every genre imaginable. This new genre was deemed the Roguelite, though this didn't make the Rogue purists happy as they had a much more restrictive definition. And some people just call them all Roguelikes.
Personally, I love both Roguelikes and Roguelites, whatever you want to call them. Slay the Spire is one of the greatest video games ever made, and that wouldn't exist without Rogue, even though on the surface it shares very little in common with its ancestor. Under the surface you find the same joys: risk/reward, high difficulty, just one more run.
In Japan, Roguelikes never went out of style in the same way because traditional dungeon crawlers kept being made. So Roguelike elements found there way into games as diverse as Azure Dreams and Baroque.
It took longer for American devs to realize that the basic joys of a Roguelike: the novelty of procedurally generated content, the pressure of permadeath, and the risk/reward tradeoff of trying to go down one more floor. Once indie devs caught the Roguelike bug, it became an epidemic of inserting elements of a Roguelike into every genre imaginable. This new genre was deemed the Roguelite, though this didn't make the Rogue purists happy as they had a much more restrictive definition. And some people just call them all Roguelikes.
Personally, I love both Roguelikes and Roguelites, whatever you want to call them. Slay the Spire is one of the greatest video games ever made, and that wouldn't exist without Rogue, even though on the surface it shares very little in common with its ancestor. Under the surface you find the same joys: risk/reward, high difficulty, just one more run.
Yeah, I did go down that rabbit hole several years ago. It is what it is.
One big part of it for me are the graphics. If the graphics/UI aren't kind of shitty, it's not going to "feel like Rogue" to me. I don't need ASCII per se, for instance I did most of my Rogue playing on the Mac port in the early/mid-80s.
This isn't the full issue for me though. Take Darkest Dungeon as an example. I love that game. And it checks all the standard boxes, even my "kind of shitty" graphics. But ... it's not Rogue.
One big part of it for me are the graphics. If the graphics/UI aren't kind of shitty, it's not going to "feel like Rogue" to me. I don't need ASCII per se, for instance I did most of my Rogue playing on the Mac port in the early/mid-80s.
This isn't the full issue for me though. Take Darkest Dungeon as an example. I love that game. And it checks all the standard boxes, even my "kind of shitty" graphics. But ... it's not Rogue.
Dungeons of Dredmor is kind of ideal: not ASCII but very functional. Same with the Shiren games I've played.
Even if the graphics are clearly better than ASCII, what makes something feel like Rogue is that there's no attempt to hide the artifice. The grid is clearly a restrictive grid. Simple icons are used to represent various types of items. There's something very clearly "programmed." An unidentified item can be broken down into a handful of variables: item type, cursed or not, effect, etc.
In fact, I wonder if Rogue is one of the reasons I got into programming. The first real thing I tried to code was a version of Rogue. The rules are so clearly defined. Playing it is kind of zen.
Even if the graphics are clearly better than ASCII, what makes something feel like Rogue is that there's no attempt to hide the artifice. The grid is clearly a restrictive grid. Simple icons are used to represent various types of items. There's something very clearly "programmed." An unidentified item can be broken down into a handful of variables: item type, cursed or not, effect, etc.
In fact, I wonder if Rogue is one of the reasons I got into programming. The first real thing I tried to code was a version of Rogue. The rules are so clearly defined. Playing it is kind of zen.
I'd never thought about it that way, but you're exactly right. Roguelikes that feel like roguelikes always have a certain "open/transparent case" sense to them, even if the actual mechanics are hidden away from you a lot (such as in NetHack). They make a virtue out of not feeling curated and crafted (even though there's a lot of craft that goes into them), and the more narrative, cinematic quality, visual polish, etc. that gets added the less it feels like Rogue.
Honestly, I think the closest experience to a classic Roguelike is playing Minesweeper or Solitaire. Most of the time your next move is pretty clear, but you always reach a point where you have incomplete information and you have to way the risk/reward of, say, trying that armor on or zapping that tough enemy with a wand of polymorph. Not a lot of video games really lean into incomplete information as a core mechanic. Experimentation is necessary to figure out all the interactions.
Though to be honest, I like my Roguelikes pretty limited in scope. I could never get into Nethack because it felt like the number of factors you needed to take into account outstripped my working memory. I found myself going to a wiki, which isn't my favorite activity.
And if we want to really get nerdy about the history of game design, I have a theory about Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a roguelike/lite... but without the three gameplay elements considered most necessary to be a descendant of Rogue: there's no permadeath, it's not turn based, and it's not procedurally generated. And yet... no other game of its era leaned as hard into the idea of incomplete information, high challenge, necessity for experimentation, and risk/reward calculations.
The history of games is so cool, because nothing ever gets forgotten. There's always some visionary who grew up on some genre of game considered outdated and niche but who can adapt that genre into a new form which can find a fresh audience.
Though to be honest, I like my Roguelikes pretty limited in scope. I could never get into Nethack because it felt like the number of factors you needed to take into account outstripped my working memory. I found myself going to a wiki, which isn't my favorite activity.
And if we want to really get nerdy about the history of game design, I have a theory about Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a roguelike/lite... but without the three gameplay elements considered most necessary to be a descendant of Rogue: there's no permadeath, it's not turn based, and it's not procedurally generated. And yet... no other game of its era leaned as hard into the idea of incomplete information, high challenge, necessity for experimentation, and risk/reward calculations.
The history of games is so cool, because nothing ever gets forgotten. There's always some visionary who grew up on some genre of game considered outdated and niche but who can adapt that genre into a new form which can find a fresh audience.
Yeah, maybe they're not "roguelikes", but more "dungeon crawlers". I like dungeon crawlers. Don't know why. The assembly language Rogue for the Coco, mentioned in the article, was one of my first games I spent a lot of time on, and maybe that stuck.
I did see that Epyx Rogue is available on Switch as a port from an Amiga version, but it's not without UI bugs [1]. Also previously when I mentioned Wiz 1 I'd forgotten the Switch was part of the sub-thread, it's available on switch as well. Have been playing the hell out of it lately :)
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/1e85mc5/tried_t...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/1e85mc5/tried_t...
If you want a similar vibe but in a game explicitly designed for controller inputs, and if you like rhythm games, then try Crypt Of The Necrodancer (or its Zelda-themed spinoff, Cadence Of Hyrule).
In the same vein of controller-native games, if you want a platformer that is the spiritual sucessor to Nethack, then you want to check out the Spelunky series.
In the same vein of controller-native games, if you want a platformer that is the spiritual sucessor to Nethack, then you want to check out the Spelunky series.
If you like a Roguelike that doesn't need a keyboard, then you might like our Amiga game Roguecraft, which is a Lovecraft-inspired coffee break Roguelike for the Amiga. We have plans to port it to the Switch, but it is easy to get it running on an Amiga emulator. =)
https://thalamusdigital.itch.io/roguecraft
https://thalamusdigital.itch.io/roguecraft
Hardcore purists categorize the genre into "traditional roguelikes" (could be mistaken for original Rogue if you squint) and "roguelites" (all the other genre mashups).
In the traditional category, Switch has Shiren 5 and 6, Jupiter Hell, and Tanglewood. Maybe Dragon Fang Z and Void Terrarium, haven't played them. Crown Trick and Crypt of the Necrodancer/Cadence of Hyrule straddle the gap, not quite traditional and not quite "lite."
...and that's about the extent of it. A lot of traditional roguelikes are hobby projects without widespread commercial appeal that never make off PC. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of quality roguelites on Switch.
In the traditional category, Switch has Shiren 5 and 6, Jupiter Hell, and Tanglewood. Maybe Dragon Fang Z and Void Terrarium, haven't played them. Crown Trick and Crypt of the Necrodancer/Cadence of Hyrule straddle the gap, not quite traditional and not quite "lite."
...and that's about the extent of it. A lot of traditional roguelikes are hobby projects without widespread commercial appeal that never make off PC. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of quality roguelites on Switch.
> Crown Trick and Crypt of the Necrodancer/Cadence of Hyrule straddle the gap, not quite traditional and not quite "lite."
I always felt like an important aspect of “lite” was whether death was real permadeath or whether good performance in one game could make the next one easier. In that aspect, COTN feels like it's a roguelite in the default (non-all-zones) mode; you get to collect a bunch of upgrades that you keep for the next run, and you can also take the zones one by one. But all zones is hardcore permadeath.
I always felt like an important aspect of “lite” was whether death was real permadeath or whether good performance in one game could make the next one easier. In that aspect, COTN feels like it's a roguelite in the default (non-all-zones) mode; you get to collect a bunch of upgrades that you keep for the next run, and you can also take the zones one by one. But all zones is hardcore permadeath.
Slay the Spire is great with a gamepad.
For any Slay the Spire fans, the Downfall fan expansion is well worth playing. The ability to go backwards through the game as some of the various bosses challenging the normal characters alone makes it a great variant.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1865780/Downfall__A_Slay_...
I mean, Shiren is a roguelike designed from the ground up for console. I went back and tried the original Shiren (Mystery Dungeon 2) on the Super Famicom via an emulator, and it's amazing how much they just nailed the balance. In some ways it's simpler than Rogue, but in other way it's deeper.
The folks at Chunsoft made some impressive games, and they single handedly kept the flame of the commercial Roguelike alive for decades (at least in Japan).
The folks at Chunsoft made some impressive games, and they single handedly kept the flame of the commercial Roguelike alive for decades (at least in Japan).
If playing rogue(6) is not your style, don't forget Rog-o-matic, the 1984 expert system that would play it for you: https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/papers/rogomatic.html
haha, a rule based precursor to deepmind agent57
NetHack is alive, well and possibly a bit over documented:
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page
Yes and still under active development [1]! We also just finished the 2024 November NetHack Tournament (TNNT) [2]! I played in the tournament for the first time this year. I had one near-win with a very challenging Monk (I was doing a bunch of conducts [3]) who unfortunately died to the infamous Wizard of Yendor (Rodney as we call him). I also had a winning run with a Wizard which unfortunately finished a few hours after the deadline at the end of the tournament, so sadly that one didn't count!
Next year I hope to have a bit more time to play so that I can record a win in regulation time!
[1] https://github.com/nethack/nethack
[2] https://tnnt.org
[3] https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Conduct
Next year I hope to have a bit more time to play so that I can record a win in regulation time!
[1] https://github.com/nethack/nethack
[2] https://tnnt.org
[3] https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Conduct
Angband should still be under development, too.
A new one I was recommended the other day: UnEpic World. It's also on Steam and itch.io, started development in 1992! By Fins!
A new one I was recommended the other day: UnEpic World. It's also on Steam and itch.io, started development in 1992! By Fins!
I guess you mean UnReal World (and Finns).
I see Errka has recently released "Ancient Savo", which looks somewhat like a rewrite of URW:
https://enormous-elk.itch.io/ancient-savo
Here he is celebrating the release.
https://www.enormouselk.com/sites/default/files/styles/w730/...
I see Errka has recently released "Ancient Savo", which looks somewhat like a rewrite of URW:
https://enormous-elk.itch.io/ancient-savo
Here he is celebrating the release.
https://www.enormouselk.com/sites/default/files/styles/w730/...
Yes, sorry for messing up the name.
I have no clue about the new game, I saw it in their page, but I only played a bit of UnReal World.
You can play the entire family of angband games at https://angband.live
And yes, mainline angband is still under active development. There are a couple of very popular variants too (frogcomposband and sil-q.)
And yes, mainline angband is still under active development. There are a couple of very popular variants too (frogcomposband and sil-q.)
I do all of my NetHack gaming via ssh to Hardfought[1]. They offer the current vanilla and previous ones all the way back to 1.3d. However they specialize in variants. My favorite variant is xNetHack[2]...
[1] https://www.hardfought.org/ [2] https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/XNetHack
[1] https://www.hardfought.org/ [2] https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/XNetHack
I play Slash'em daily.
I wish they had earlier versions.
https://britzl.github.io/roguearchive/ collects a bunch of roguelike (or -lite?) links.
Perhaps something like this:
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Game_history
https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Game_history
What a coincidence that this should be posted on the 12th anniversary of Pixel Dungeon, which is an entertaining free and open source roguelike for Android. There's an actively developed fork called Shattered Pixel Dungeon developed by Even Debenhams. It looks splendid and still gets new gameplay mechanics from time to time.
https://shatteredpixel.com/shatteredpd/
PS. This isn't a paid advert - I've just wasted a lot of time dying to sewer crabs in this game and want to make sure you have the opportunity to waste your time too ;)
https://shatteredpixel.com/shatteredpd/
PS. This isn't a paid advert - I've just wasted a lot of time dying to sewer crabs in this game and want to make sure you have the opportunity to waste your time too ;)
I worked down the hall from Ken Arnold (he was one of the later additions to the project, mentioned about half way down the page) at HP/Apollo around 1990; aside from being an inspirational Senior Troublemaker, he kept an eye on Rogomatic - an advanced rogue-playing "bot" - and would make minor tweaks to Rogue itself that didn't change things for human players, but were adversarial for the bot...
That's fascinating! Do you recall any examples of such tweaks? To my mind, making the decision more complicated for all players, human and bot alike, would probably have been justified. But I suppose for a 1980s computer scientist targeting only the bot was an extra-interesting puzzle.
I never got that deep into it. It mostly caught my attention because it was distinct variant of meta-gaming that I hadn't seen before.
I still fondly remember how inclusive the minimalism of games like NetHack actually were. NetHack was the first game I played after moving to Linux, roughly 1995. I say inclusive, because I played it with a Braille display. Many aspects of the simplicity of the 90s led to unintentional accessibility. I also used to read guitar tabs in plain ASCII when they were still exchanged on NNTP groups. These days, every guitar tab site I find is "polished" and therefore no longer accessible.
This[1] bookmarklet strips everything that isn't preformatted plain text from a page. It seems to work on both gametabs[2] and ultimate-guitar[3] and probably others that don't try to get fancy with their typography. Hopefully it is of some use.
[1](javascript:(function(){const tabs = document.querySelectorAll('pre'); document.head.remove(); document.body.remove(); document.body = document.createElement('body'); for(const tab of tabs){ document.body.appendChild(tab);};})();)
[2](https://www.gametabs.net/)
[3](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/explore?type[]=Tabs)
[1](javascript:(function(){const tabs = document.querySelectorAll('pre'); document.head.remove(); document.body.remove(); document.body = document.createElement('body'); for(const tab of tabs){ document.body.appendChild(tab);};})();)
[2](https://www.gametabs.net/)
[3](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/explore?type[]=Tabs)
That's so terrible to hear! Is there no nice tool out there that converts guitar tabs from ultimate guitar or whatever to ASCII? Maybe scraping there big clunky websites is hard... Hmm.
A Braille display - it converts any ASCII characters to Braille, but struggles with non-ASCII stuff, is that it?
A Braille display - it converts any ASCII characters to Braille, but struggles with non-ASCII stuff, is that it?
The Sysadmins where I worked in leeds 82-84 invested a LOT of time doing codework on rogue. They also got high fu in Mud on the dec-10. When a PhD student worked out how to eject the memory resident part of Mud and get it back to zero, thereby losing the chief ops his power, he banned him from login for a month, and then once he got "finger of death" back basically harrassed the living shit out of his character inside the Mud.
The Rogue work pre-dated Hack. I think when Hack came up, and there was persisting state of the dungeon and multi-user, it reached peak. I liked Rogue. I only know one guy who got all the way down. Shopkeepers were awesome, if you did wind up sneaking in the back wall of a shop and looting it, got very feral once they worked it out.
Don't step on your dog, dawg. And DEFINITELY don't eat it if you do.
The Rogue work pre-dated Hack. I think when Hack came up, and there was persisting state of the dungeon and multi-user, it reached peak. I liked Rogue. I only know one guy who got all the way down. Shopkeepers were awesome, if you did wind up sneaking in the back wall of a shop and looting it, got very feral once they worked it out.
Don't step on your dog, dawg. And DEFINITELY don't eat it if you do.
My floppy based games were Rogue, Hack and Empire.
Wow. So great. Just learning of the existence of these games recently, and feeling nostalgia for pasts I didn't live.
On account of your username, I clicked on your profile to see if there was some story behind it, and got to the gunkies wiki. Looks pretty cool!
On account of your username, I clicked on your profile to see if there was some story behind it, and got to the gunkies wiki. Looks pretty cool!
I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned Larn/ULarn, which I played a lot back in the day. Each level was about the size of a Rogue level, but levels weren't completely random. There were a number of basic level templates, each of which could be modified in various ways. Some were random mazes; in others, the basic map never changed, but doors got added or deleted in various places.
My basic strategy was to save my coins until I could get the Lance of Death, the "Walk through Walls" spell, haste self spell, and "permanent" spell, which made current buffs permanent. Then I could romp and frolic through the levels.
My basic strategy was to save my coins until I could get the Lance of Death, the "Walk through Walls" spell, haste self spell, and "permanent" spell, which made current buffs permanent. Then I could romp and frolic through the levels.
One of my classmates flunked out of Harvey Mudd freshman year thanks to obsessively playing Moria. First semester he failed 4 out of 5 classes and the administration normally would tell him not to come back in the spring, but they decided to give him a chance to do better. Second semester he failed all 5 classes.
I'm reminded of Bright's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1977_video_game), a turn-based PvP strategy game. My friend's 1989-ish instance was sadistic enough to batch execute four turns per day. Every player had to rush to a TTY every six hours to give new marching orders. If you study or sleep too late, your forces and factories could be wiped out.
The obsessives, living on campus newly free of supervision, were line printing maps and writing logistic planning tools that foreshadowed EVE Online's "spreadsheets in space."
The obsessives, living on campus newly free of supervision, were line printing maps and writing logistic planning tools that foreshadowed EVE Online's "spreadsheets in space."
I still play it. Also, XConq it's a modern rendition of Empire, written in TCL/Tk.
Heh. My first rogue-like was Moria on the 4-College VAX-780, at CMC, which is a short walk from Harvey Mudd. We had both Moria and Walker Bright's Empire, and I tried both of them. I didn't really get deeply into Moria until later, when the first MSDOS version came out; but after that I was obsessed with Moria and its follow-on, Angband, plus many different variants of Angband, for many, many years.
Just played Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup last night. The spirit is alive and well.
And you can play, or spectate some else, in your browser: https://crawl.develz.org/
CDDA for me at the moment, version 0.H Herbert was released last month.
https://cataclysmdda.org
https://cataclysmdda.org
I can't compile CDDA:Bright Nights with clang 11.
Didn't the Unix version have some interesting encryption going on w/ the saved game file circa 1984 +/- 1y?
IIRC it folded in: - the players uid and - the files inode
To prevent the file from being usable by other players, and preventing the user from making a usable copy of it...
IIRC it folded in: - the players uid and - the files inode
To prevent the file from being usable by other players, and preventing the user from making a usable copy of it...
Right, the point of being able to save a game was to pick up later where you had left off. However, the game attempted to prevent you from restarting from a saved game if you made a mistake or got killed or something.
I think the scheme was fairly clever but it wasn't terribly sophisticated; nothing like public-key crypto for instance. It did have a number of countermeasures that attempted to prevent cheating, such as restarting from a modified save file. For example, I believe it hashed all the bytes of the file, plus a bunch of metadata -- possibly including the uid and the file's i-number, as you suggest -- and also things like the file modification time and maybe even the i-node change time. Then it would write this hash back into the file. I seem to recall a bit of cleverness to avoid problems because writing the hash could potentially modify things like the file modification time. Maybe it just retried until the modtime didn't change. Not too difficult since the granularity was one second.
In principle this is easy to defeat if you know the hash algorithm, and if you knew how to use the Unix system calls to change a file's modification time. Since the original rogue program was closed source, the hash algorithm was secret. But eventually somebody reverse-engineered it, and programs emerged that were able to successfully copy save files.
I think the scheme was fairly clever but it wasn't terribly sophisticated; nothing like public-key crypto for instance. It did have a number of countermeasures that attempted to prevent cheating, such as restarting from a modified save file. For example, I believe it hashed all the bytes of the file, plus a bunch of metadata -- possibly including the uid and the file's i-number, as you suggest -- and also things like the file modification time and maybe even the i-node change time. Then it would write this hash back into the file. I seem to recall a bit of cleverness to avoid problems because writing the hash could potentially modify things like the file modification time. Maybe it just retried until the modtime didn't change. Not too difficult since the granularity was one second.
In principle this is easy to defeat if you know the hash algorithm, and if you knew how to use the Unix system calls to change a file's modification time. Since the original rogue program was closed source, the hash algorithm was secret. But eventually somebody reverse-engineered it, and programs emerged that were able to successfully copy save files.
Rogue holds up remarkably well. I installed it about a year ago out of “historical curiosity”, only to find myself playing it for almost an hour.
I will admit that DRL it a bit more my style nowadays, it’s amazing to me that a game living entirely in my terminal is still pretty fun.
I will admit that DRL it a bit more my style nowadays, it’s amazing to me that a game living entirely in my terminal is still pretty fun.
Rogue is a very cool game, but what get me into the genre is Angband and Nethack.
I played them with ascci tiles on my computer at the french university in 2002-2004 and my classmates where all playing Warcraft 3, Diablo or Call of Duty and they where very confused to see my little games!
I think that ascii characters are a good interface for this kind of game because the brain has to work to imagine the game which makes the memories of games more memorable.
I still play Nethack some times and I must try Brogue. I never had the time to get into Dwarf Fortress.
I played them with ascci tiles on my computer at the french university in 2002-2004 and my classmates where all playing Warcraft 3, Diablo or Call of Duty and they where very confused to see my little games!
I think that ascii characters are a good interface for this kind of game because the brain has to work to imagine the game which makes the memories of games more memorable.
I still play Nethack some times and I must try Brogue. I never had the time to get into Dwarf Fortress.
Hated the Rust Monsters on level 8 that would destroy any decent armor you had managed to enhance and rarely survived the Umber Hulks on level 18 with their ability to confuse you and the huge damage they did. Never found the amulet. Got fantastic keyboards skills for vi directional commands at least for a non-touch typist.
I went back to Rogue as an experienced Nethack player. Managed to finally win it after a good number of attempts. You have to get lucky with some early gear finds, and then spend absolutely as few turns as possible on the lower levels (otherwise, you won't survive long down there) to grab that amulet and get out. Rogue, Nethack and Nethack variants like evilhackk are all great games.
Oh MANNNN I spent so much time playing rogue back in the day. I got decently good at it, but it was hard. I don't think I ever actually won. I do recall a strategy of clearing out the easier levels in order to gain treasure and magic items. At a certain point you wouldn't be able to defeat all the monsters, so you'd try to find the stairs as quickly as possible. On the occasions where I'd get really far -- far enough to start looking for the amulet! -- I'd get trapped by some powerful monster like a Titan and get killed instantly.
Such a letdown. You'd play for hours and it would all be over in an instant. That damned tombstone.
Such a letdown. You'd play for hours and it would all be over in an instant. That damned tombstone.
It makes me feel better to know that one of its own creators hasn’t even beaten it. I never got anywhere near even finding the amulet when I was a kid, but it didn’t make it any less fun!
Wonderful article, and I really enjoyed rogue. I was first exposed to it when doing a port of BSD to the Data General NOVA and it was part of the distribution.
I would pick one nit with the history though, CRT computer terminals were absolutely considered a "whole screen" output device. This was because IBM had made the 3270 terminal which you could download a form to, the operator could fill it out (without any computer involvement) and then hit 'submit' and have a single transaction get sent to the mainframe.
Yes, there were a few "dumb" terminals that were simply paperless teletypes, but the majority had some level of 'forms' capability which involved cursor addressing, different character highlights (blinking/underling/bold), and usually some basic box drawing characters. All in the service of allowing a 'fill-in' form that someone could be trained on quickly without having to explain "computers" to them at all. When the computer started up, the terminals would light up showing a form.
In terms of the tree of life for games, I put rogue, Walter Bright's empire, and Civilization (also called empire in some cases) as the roots for so many video games in the game industry.
I would pick one nit with the history though, CRT computer terminals were absolutely considered a "whole screen" output device. This was because IBM had made the 3270 terminal which you could download a form to, the operator could fill it out (without any computer involvement) and then hit 'submit' and have a single transaction get sent to the mainframe.
Yes, there were a few "dumb" terminals that were simply paperless teletypes, but the majority had some level of 'forms' capability which involved cursor addressing, different character highlights (blinking/underling/bold), and usually some basic box drawing characters. All in the service of allowing a 'fill-in' form that someone could be trained on quickly without having to explain "computers" to them at all. When the computer started up, the terminals would light up showing a form.
In terms of the tree of life for games, I put rogue, Walter Bright's empire, and Civilization (also called empire in some cases) as the roots for so many video games in the game industry.
HN's very own WalterBright?! I had no idea he'd inspired Sid Meier's Civilization. There's more to thank him for than I realised.
Empire and XConq are basically the same, but the last one it's written in TCL/Tk+C and expanded a lot.
Sadly isn't maintained very well today, as I found bugs on restoring a save file made from the last GitHub build.
And it's a pity because anyone who liked VMS Empire would love XConq in the spot.
Sadly isn't maintained very well today, as I found bugs on restoring a save file made from the last GitHub build.
And it's a pity because anyone who liked VMS Empire would love XConq in the spot.
IBM terminals are a completely different thing than what the popular minicomputer systems had. From what I understand, the 3270 wasn't a simple serial device. IBM had the advantage that they had control of the entire ecosystem, so their hardware and software worked together much like Apple stuff does today.
Minicomputers (and some mainframes) generally used the kind of terminals as described in the article. Those things were everywhere.
Minicomputers (and some mainframes) generally used the kind of terminals as described in the article. Those things were everywhere.
Apologies for not being clear, 3270s are VERY different from the terminals that connect to mini-computers and the VT-series from DEC.
That said, the product capability that mini-computers were going after was to replace mainframes, and mainframes had 3270s and they could do this really cool thing. There wasn't anything particularly special about the 3270 terminal controller or the capabilities of the 3270 that couldn't be implemented in an alternative way. For a mini-computer terminal to get a similar customer experience they needed to be more than just paperless teletypes.
That started with the VT05 which was introduced in 1970 and had directly addressable cursor. Replaced by the VT50 in '74 and then the VT52 in '75 when things really started to get cooking. As the DEC-10 and later VAX started being sold to customers instead of them buying an IBM machine things really took off.
That said, the product capability that mini-computers were going after was to replace mainframes, and mainframes had 3270s and they could do this really cool thing. There wasn't anything particularly special about the 3270 terminal controller or the capabilities of the 3270 that couldn't be implemented in an alternative way. For a mini-computer terminal to get a similar customer experience they needed to be more than just paperless teletypes.
That started with the VT05 which was introduced in 1970 and had directly addressable cursor. Replaced by the VT50 in '74 and then the VT52 in '75 when things really started to get cooking. As the DEC-10 and later VAX started being sold to customers instead of them buying an IBM machine things really took off.
The wiki page for 3270 shows so many devices and machines that were designed and created by IBM. Does IBM make anything like that these days ?
I'm sure they do. I've seen 3270s in use in a few places in the last few years. I'm not sure what they use for new designs, though - I don't hear much about the mainframe world from my part of the industry.
> Yes, there were a few "dumb" terminals that were simply paperless teletypes
Ah yes, the proverbial "glass TTY." There were a few years in the late 1970s where printing terminals (actual Teletypes such as the ASR 33, and matrix printing terminals like the DECwriter) were fading out and "dumb" CRT terminals came in. When I arrived at university in 1980 the computer center was filled with dumb terminals like the ADM-3. There were a few smart terminals (they could run Emacs!) but they were hard to come by.
Within a couple years, though, the dumb terminals were all gone and were replaced by "smart" CRT terminals that had the more sophisticated features. So the lifetime of the glass TTY might have been only 5-10 years.
Ah yes, the proverbial "glass TTY." There were a few years in the late 1970s where printing terminals (actual Teletypes such as the ASR 33, and matrix printing terminals like the DECwriter) were fading out and "dumb" CRT terminals came in. When I arrived at university in 1980 the computer center was filled with dumb terminals like the ADM-3. There were a few smart terminals (they could run Emacs!) but they were hard to come by.
Within a couple years, though, the dumb terminals were all gone and were replaced by "smart" CRT terminals that had the more sophisticated features. So the lifetime of the glass TTY might have been only 5-10 years.
> It was a very different approach from the way you would approach things today, where you would certainly abstract out the platform and try to make a game that looked and felt as close to identical as possible.
It would be often wiser not to try, especially today : for instance few games are going to work as well on a small touchscreen as on a large monitor with mouse and keyboard.
It would be often wiser not to try, especially today : for instance few games are going to work as well on a small touchscreen as on a large monitor with mouse and keyboard.
I really enjoyed the Epyx Atari ST version... Do you know if source code (assets, ...) are available somewhere ?
Rogue reminds me of the Zork series. A simple text interface with your own imagination. The best GUI ever.
Love that article, and this thread. Very new to the world of games, and this sort of area (and MUDs, generally, too, I suppose) seems so ripe for further exploration. What an exquisite world
Kinda OT but do people know why there are so many people misspelling "rogue" with "rouge"? See it a lot online.
The "gu" combination is just tricky/rare in English, while the combination "ou" is common enough to be an attractor. See also "tounge" and "chaise lounge". "Lounge" and "rouge" also share the property of being legitimate spellchecker words in their own rights.
We don't see this phenomenon happen with, say, "plauge" for "plague", because the diphthong "au" (as in "tau") is pronounced differently from long "a". But "ou" (as in "thorough") could be pronounced exactly the same as long "o". (And compare "restaraunt", as in "aunt".)
We don't see this phenomenon happen with, say, "plauge" for "plague", because the diphthong "au" (as in "tau") is pronounced differently from long "a". But "ou" (as in "thorough") could be pronounced exactly the same as long "o". (And compare "restaraunt", as in "aunt".)
Anyone know what is the sexy font used in this picture? https://i0.wp.com/spillhistorie.no/wp-content/uploads/2024/0...
Not it, but see this related modern work! https://departuremono.com/
And a recent and informing podcast episode about it, https://changelog.com/podcast/618.
And a recent and informing podcast episode about it, https://changelog.com/podcast/618.
I'm pretty sure that's a Link MC5 terminal, which emulates DEC VT220 by default, but that font doesn't seem very VT220ish. https://vt100.net/dec/vt220/glyphs
emulating DEC VT's generally meant the full featureset of DEC ANSI escape sequences for cursor positioning, saving, colors, bold, etc. It would not include emulating fonts.
i googled and found this picture of a Link MC5 screen, though it's monochrome, don't know if they would have changed that.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg...
i googled and found this picture of a Link MC5 screen, though it's monochrome, don't know if they would have changed that.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg...
I cannot name it off the top of my head, but I am sure its here:
https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
This only lists PC fonts, which doesn't include UNIX terminals. I admit I haven't checked them all just yet.
I think it's just called AT&T PC6300. There are a bunch of variants but I'm somewhat confident it's in that family. The very high x-height and tiny, 45º slash are characteristic.
Nope, the y is markedly different than the screenshot: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/font?att_pc63...
Good call. The p looks way different too. Idk then!
[deleted]
Odd to see no mention of Collosal Caves. Were they unaware of it?
The version of Rogue then was quite a bit harder than later versions and it was almost unheard of for anyone to actually get the amulet and get back out. Then this one student started regularly making the high score list, and soon had pushed everyone else off. Then he got the amulet and got out. Then he did that enough time to have the high score list full of games where he got the amulet.
Then he stopped playing, until someone else would get on the high score list. Then he'd come to the computer center and play for maybe a half hour until he'd pushed them off the high score list.
This was driving everyone else completely nuts because he was, as mentioned, playing in the computer center. The way the terminals were arranged there was no privacy. Everyone else could watch him play, but no one could figure out why he did so much better than the rest of us.
He eventually explained it. He didn't actually do any one thing significantly better than the rest of us. For any given thing he was just slightly better. But he was slighted better at many things and that added up.
For example if most people were coming back through a room they had passed through the other way earlier they would take the most convenient route between the doors. That generally would not be simply the reverse of the route they had taken the first time through, because the first time they were exploring the room.
He on the other hand would take a route that only involved stepping places where he had stepped the first time through. That way he never sprung any new traps on the way back, unlike people who stepped in new places.