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A roguelike is a computer game that borrows some of the elements of the 1980s computer game Rogue. A roguelike is a superficially two-dimensional dungeon crawling computer game, usually with simple text or ASCII "graphics" and many with "tiles" which replace the rather limited character set with a wider array.

The genre is named after Rogue, although some features of Rogue existed in earlier games, notably: Adventure (1975), Dungeon (1975 for PDP-10 mainframes), and several games written for the PLATO system on CDC computers such as dnd (1975, ) and 0moria (late 1970s). Both dnd and 0moria used limited graphics and were multi-user. 0moria used a primitive first-person shooter 3-D view, while dnd used a top-down map view similar to Rogue. Unlike Rogue and 0moria, most earlier games had pre-scripted scenarios that were largely the same each time they were played and which players could grow tired of, with only some random variations. In Rogue and 0moria the dungeon is randomly regenerated each time the player begins the game, creating a new challenge each time and remaining fresh for the player.

Becoming widely available with the Berkeley Software Distribution version of Unix, Rogue became the most popular dungeon crawl game yet created.

Typical gameplay

These games present an absolutely overhead view, the components of which were originally characters on a teletype. Traditionally, the hero is represented by an "@" sign, which can be seen as a head and shoulders view from above. Other characters (usually enemy monsters) are represented by letters of the alphabet. Rogue itself only made use of capital letters, but modern roguelikes utilize different capitalization of letters to represent different monsters. A dog, for example, may be represented by the letter "d", and a dragon by a "D". Also, to further distinguish various creatures, a modern roguelike game will display different colored letters. For example, a Red Dragon might be represented by a red "D", whereas a Blue Dragon might be represented by a blue "D", each with their own abilities and required strategy by the player. Further dungeon features are represented by other ASCII (or ANSI) graphics. A traditional sampling is below.

Though many Rogue "purists" scoff at the idea, it is becoming increasingly popular to make use of graphics in roguelikes. Numerous graphical versions are available for most of the traditional games; and it is very common for the newer roguelike projects in development to use graphics, sometimes even sound.

The hero is controlled by short commands of one or a few keypresses rather than using a mouse or typing long sentence-like commands. For example, in NetHack a player would press "r" to read a scroll, "d" to drop an item, and "q" to quaff (drink) a potion.

Though they may seem like trivial games at a first glance because of their simple graphics and interface, fans claim that roguelikes provide a much greater gameplay detail depth than average commercial games, arguing that instead of spending a lot of time on the graphics and 3D engines roguelike developers focus on advancing gameplay.

There are many online communities dedicated to roguelike games, most notably the rec.games.roguelike hierarchy on Usenet. There also exist a few paper-based roguelikes; one is in fact called "Roguelike". "Adom the RPG" is another.

The computer game Diablo is thought of as a modern, graphical RPG adventure with a similar premise to Rogue: players slash their way through increasingly difficult monsters and attain treasure while traversing to deeper and deeper levels of the dungeon and completing quest objectives. In light of this, Diablo is referred to by some as a "Roguelike", even though the actual gameplay is wildly different.

Usual features

• Roguelike games feature randomly generated dungeon levels, which give them more replay value than games in which the levels are the same every time, though many have static levels as well. The randomly generated levels typically include rooms (some of which may be preset or specific, e.g. monster lairs, treasuries) and corridors / tunnels leading from one to another, though more open non-room spaces or other elements, like rivers, may occur.

• Rogue uses a hardware independent text cursor system called curses to display levels with information in the termcap database. Rogue is one of a number of excellent applications to separate display from underlying hardware which Unix ran on.

• The appearance of magical items changes randomly from game to game. A player who finds these items would only be told the appearance of the item. The effects of the item are not revealed; the player must find this out somehow. For example, the red potion might be the potion of healing in one game and a bottle of poison the next. The items can often be modified in-game or have specific features (like being cursed).

• Roguelike games use a Dungeons & Dragons-like turn-based combat system instead of a real-time system. Often, physical combat is executed by "bumping" into monsters.

• There is a great deal of variance between different games in appearance, commands, plot, and strategy.

• Most roguelikes are single-player games, due to the difficulty of extending a turn-based system to support multiple players. However, some multi-player Rogue derivatives such as TomeNET, MAngband, and Crossfire exist and are playable online. On multi-user systems controlled by appointed administrators and having the required security features, scoreboards for single-player games are often "shared" between players playing the same rules, without the opportunity to cheat by changing the game or savefiles. Some also allow traces of former players to appear in others' games in form of ghosts or grave markings.

• Roguelike games traditionally implement permadeath - death is unrecoverable. Once a character is dead, discounting item-afforded preclusion, the player must start over from the beginning of the game. Most roguelikes provide a "save game" feature, but this is only intended to allow splitting a game across multiple sessions, and the save file will be deleted automatically when the character dies. Players can avoid this by copying the file to another location, but this is considered cheating and often known as "save scumming". Some roguelikes provide a "wizard mode" which lets players explore the dungeon without risk of death. Player may also encounter items during normal gameplay that can prevent death (usually just once).

• The world of roguelikes is heavily interactive and players can often perform tasks impossible in other games, e.g. digging through walls or lighting fires.

• While some elements may not appear in all roguelikes, they are often popular and found in various games of the genre. Examples may include wishes or a system of religion (often with a pantheon of gods which a player's character can worship).

Roguelike family tree

Roguelikes branched in three main directions:

• The Hacklikes, where levels are saved after being left. Notable examples include NetHack, Slash'EM, Linley's Dungeon Crawl, and Castle of the Winds.
• The Bands, where levels are regenerated after being left. The main occupants of this branch are Moria, Angband and their variants.
• The overworld games, where there is more than one dungeon (or, in the case of The UnReal World, no dungeons at all (only caves)). Notable examples of this school are Omega (dungeons are regenerated after being left), ADOM (every dungeon but one is preserved when left), ToME, and later versions of ZAngband.

Note that there are other attributes that distinguish branches; for example, starvation is a major threat in Hacklikes, while in the others it is rare to die of starvation.

Major roguelikes

Modern roguelikes (which are still supported and/or widely played)

• Ancient Domains of Mystery or ADOM
• Angband (with over sixty variants, some not actively maintained)
• Troubles of Middle Earth, or ToME (a heavily modified ZAngband variant, perhaps the closest to Tolkien in some regards)
• Linley's Dungeon Crawl (also called Dungeon Crawl or just Crawl)
• NetHack (A descendant of Hack)

Classic roguelikes (influential early roguelike games)

• Rogue
• Moria
• Hack
• Larn
• Omega

See also

• MUD
• Seven day roguelike

References

1. Damjan Jovanovic (2005-1-13). "Roguelike Development FAQ" (txt). Retrieved 2006-11-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. Petri Kuittinen (2001-06-12). "Rogue - Exploring the Dungeons of Doom (1980)". Retrieved 2006-12-04.

Sources

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• Rogue - Exploring the Dungeons of Doom
• A Brief History of "Rogue"
• Roguelike Roundup
• ADOM - Introduction to Roguelike Games
• Rogue in 1UP's The Essential 50 - An article detailing the history of Rogue and touching on the effects it had on many other games.

External links

• Guide to Roguelike Games
• Genealogy & Chronology of Roguelike games
• Open Directory Project's Rogue-like Category
• List of Actively Developing Roguelikes
• Roguelike Development - a good starting point for aspiring developers, containing articles, files, and helpful links.
• RogueBasin - a MediaWiki-based wiki devoted to roguelikes.
• Roguelike Restoration Project
• @ Play - a column devoted to discussion of Roguelikes.

• Video game genres
• Roguelikes