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Rogue-Like Games

Back in the pre-Windows days of computers two students, Michael Toy and Glen Wichman, began to develop a graphical computer game based on Dungeons & Dragons and text based computer games like Adventure. Games like Adventure or Zork, while extremely entertaining for a while, were the same every time they were played so once the puzzles were discovered they lost much of their charm and the game creators, obviously, would know each game's secrets and would not have fun playing the games. Toy & Wichman's game, dubbed Rogue by Wichman, was created to be different each time it was played so that even the authors could have fun playing.

Rogue was further developed by Toy & Ken Arnold (Wichman was replaced by Arnold when Toy moved to UC-Berkeley). When Rogue was included in the distribution of BSD UNIX it quickly became the most popular computer game on college campuses (and corporate research offices) around the world. For a more complete history see the links at the bottom of this page.

Eventually, Rogue was ported to other operating systems. More importantly, Rogue led the way to the development of an entire genre of computer games dubbed, appropriately enough, Rogue-like games. Rogue itself was developed to Advanced, Super and UltraRogue, although these versions unfortunately had extremely limited distribution. A significant branch led to Hack, which led to NetHack, which led to Slash'Em. NetHack and Slash'Em are still in active development today. Another popular game in this genre is Moria, which led to Angband and now Zangband. Zangband, at least, is also actively being developed. A.D.O.M. has a very devoted cult following but I understand it has a more complicated plot and is not as user friendly. Others, which I haven't yet tried include Omega, Larn and Dungeon Crawl (just downloaded it!). Since I have only played Rogue, NetHack and Slash'Em extensively I will limit my discussion to them although the other games certainly have devoted, cult-like followings which seems to prove they are also great games, as any web search will prove.

I was first able to occasionally play an early version of Rogue on a UNIX system in the early eighties. I really became a fan of the game when I was able to regularly play an advanced version of Rogue called Super Rogue. It is listed on the Balrog page (see linl below) but little information is available. I don't believe it was ever ported to DOS and was only available with releases of BSD and AT&T's System V.

Super Rogue (and Advanced and apparently Ultra Rogue) was different from the original Rogue (and NetHack & Slash'Em) in that instead of seeking the Amulet of Yendor there was a randomly assigned unique quest artifact held by one of the several unique monsters (hereafter referred to as Uniques) each game. The other Uniques, if encountered, still held their respective artifacts and if you could defeat them you could take their artifacts for your own use although this could really backfire on you. Once you picked up an artifact you could not put it down and were stuck with the intrinsics it gave you forever (or until the game ended). Some of them changed your character class (for instance, the Daggers of Musty Doit changed you into a thief and the Ankh of Heil changed you into a Priest). This could be good or bad depending on your character's other attributes. I believe you also could retain some benefits (such as Musty Doit's thief stealth) when another artifact changed you into another type of character. However, if you picked up a second of the same type of artifact (such as picking up the Amulet of Yendor while already wearing the Amulet of Skoreous Stonebones or picking up the Morning Star of Hrugget while already wielding the Daggers of Musty Doit) you would suddenly be confronted with your tombstone inscribed with the epitaph "…killed by an Artifact's wrath". In addition, if you picked up an artifact of the same type as your quest item you could not win the game for the above reasons.

I wish this tack had been developed in NetHack and Slash'Em as it greatly helped expand the variety of game strategy and excitement in the Rogues. I certainly don't mean to denigrate Nethack and Slash'Em. They do have side quests for each character type, artifacts can be randomly generated (although rare) and you can wish for artifacts. There are also many special levels that require special tactics and which often are the lairs of Uniques. The two games are far more advanced and subtle than any of the Rogue games with a tremendous amount of little quirks and tips and tricks to be learned for each character type. I do think the addition of a greater variety of game quests and artifact interactions would be a great direction for the further development of NetHack and Slash'Em gameplay. Far better than the current wasted effort in development of graphical tiles.

For a long time after my Super Rogue days (at least ten years!) I never got a chance to play any of these games except for once playing Hack (the predecessor of NetHack) at someone's house. I had hoped to see a general release of Rogue for a long time but graphic intensive games are all that were ever marketed. When I finally got on the internet one of the first things I did was search for Rogue. While I didn't find Rogue I did find NetHack. I was back in the game! NetHack and its successor Slash'Em were both in active development. The games and their source codes are available (see the links below) for several operating systems and there are a plethora of websites with tips, hints and spoilers for the games. I've recently discovered this is the case with many Rogue-Likes, including Rogue itself.

The basic plot for a game of Rogue (I will use Rogue to refer to Rogue, Nethack and Slash'em unless I am referring to something game specific) is simple. The player descends into a dungeon, level by level, in search of an assigned quest item. In NetHack, Slash'Em and Rogue this is the Amulet of Yendor but, as mentioned above, Advanced Rogue and up had randomly assigned quest items carried by a unique monster (more on the monsters later) and in NetHack and Slash'Em side quests are possible. On the way down into the dungeon the player battles an assortment of monsters (the further down one goes the tougher the monsters get) and tries to avoid an assortment of traps and other pitfalls such as poisons, starvation, etc. There are special rooms and special levels with unique monsters usually carrying a unique weapon or artifact which is yours to use if you can defeat the monster carrying it. Along the way the player gains experience and improves the character's capabilities, armor, weapons, inventory of magic items, magic abilities, etc in order to increase their chances of victory. Once the quest item is retrieved the player has to battle back up through the dungeon to escape to the surface. In NetHack and Slash'Em there are then four elemental planes to get through (Earth, Air, Water and the Astral Planes). The Astral Plane, the last, also is the abode of the Riders (Death, Pestilence & Famine).

While the game may sound simple enough, in reality it turns out to be way more involved. There are so many intricacies and quirks in the game that even an expert can continually run across something new. Every item you find in the dungeon has its own particular properties. Each character has particular armor, weapons and attacks that are best suited to it (and those that are most deadly to itself). Some items can be used in several different ways which may or may not be obvious. You start out with a pet to help you but you must feed and protect it. Lawful, neutral and chaotic characters have to play by a different standards of behaviour. You can call on your god for help, as long as your god is still pleased with your actions.

Advancing deep into the game is tough. One usually gets killed in the first few levels. A game can take weeks to finish, longer if you take time out to eat, sleep or bathe. It can take years to master the game, if at all. A great many regular players have never "won" a game of NetHack or Slash'Em. I did win several games of Super Rogue (probably over ten hours of actual gametime over a week or two) including one in which I killed every "unique" monster and carried off every artifact possible to carry. I still have the score sheet somewhere - eventually I'll scan and post it. I recently, finally, in a game that took over six months (not continuous - but I bet there was easily over 24 hours of actual gametime involved) to play, won my first ever game of Slash'Em. On the other hand, some sanctimonious players set voluntary challenges such as no wishing or no genociding monster species to make the game harder. I'm a long way from that type of challenge. I'm trying a more difficult character right now. As I stated previously, even the game's creators and developers can still have fun playing and can still be surprised playing the game.

Someone playing one of these games for the first time, especially in this era of bells and whistles graphics intensive action games, is bound to be initially disappointed. The games were developed using ASCII text for graphics. There is a line of text at the top of the screen briefly describing what happens after each keystroke. Your character is an @, dungeon walls are _ or |, tunnels are ###, monsters are letters a-z and A-Z, items such as gold, scrolls, potions etc are represented by symbols such as $, ?, !, etc. Once one gets over the lack of modern graphics and let their imagination take over the incredibly involved gameplay quickly causes addiction. Since the developers are freed from wasting time on improving graphics they are able to devote their full energy and imagination to the actual gameplay. They have spent some twenty years doing so to great effect although their recent effort have alarmingly turned towards graphics.

Unlike games such as Quake or Diablo where slight hesitation (or lack of keyboard dexterity) can mean your instant demise Rogue is turn based, meaning one gets their turn(s) then their current antagonist gets their turn(s). Sometimes, depending on the speed of the participants, one or the other gets extra turns. What this means in practice (well, in theory anyway) is that one gets to think out each move. Considering the predicaments one can get their character into thinking is sometimes the best move. Often, especially early in the game, running away is the best choice. A chess-like concentration may be necessary to plot an escape from a predicament! It is often necessary to look through one's inventory and try to decide whether to fight it out, use magic or tools, run away or a combination of any or all of these. While you don't get quite the same initial adrenalin rush the newer games provide the mental intensity can be incredible and it doesn't fade away. When you start dreaming in ASCII characters it's time to take a break.

Some of the features in NetHack and Slash'em not available in Rogue include different character classes to play as, each with their own strengths and weaknesses (in Rogue you are simply a fighter, except for later versions which somewhat expanded the character classes), gaining special abilities (intrinsics) by eating monsters that have these abilities, special rooms and levels, more monsters and the unique monsters.

The unique monsters are special. Each has a special ability and many carry either a special magic item or a powerful weapon. Most live on special levels in a castle or fortress of some sort. Some are surrounded by helper monsters or are able to summon help. All of them are extremely dangerous.

The regular monsters can vary from simple to kill more annoying than dangerous monsters on up to extremely powerful and dangerous monsters that can hurt you in a high variety of ways.

Most of the dungeon levels are randomly generated whenever you enter that level for the first time but there are several unique levels that contain special treasures or the lairs of unique monsters.

The games are way too involved for me to describe in complete detail*. I would suggest reading some of the many spoiler pages (see links below for some pages) for more information and tips on playing the game. I'm by no means a high level expert and as I mentioned, I've only won one game of Slash'em. I did manage to kill the Wizard of Yendor and the High Priest in Moloch's Temple in another game but a bug in that version of the program caused an invalid page fault when I tried to pick up the amulet. Apparently the Wizard of Yendor is in league with the "Wizard" of Redmond!

*I am currently engaged in a project of keeping a journal of a Slash'em game as if I was a character actually engaged on a quest. It will be quite a while before it is finished but once it is fairly well developed I will put it online so any visitors to this web page will be able to get a sense of what playing the game is like, at least in my imagination.

Some Tips to Advance Deeper in the Game - Here are some tips and tricks I have learned while playing these games.

Another great thing about these games is their small size. The Rogue zip is less than 100 kb. The Nethack, Omega and ADOM zips are each small enough to fit on a floppy disk. The Zangband zip probably is but I don't seem to have a copy anymore. Slash'em used to fit on a floppy but has steadily increased to a larger size as the developers are determined to add more useless graphics in the form of tiles and menu windows to the game. What used to be a smart, less than 4 MB game unzipped had grown to a bloated 19+ MB the last time I checked. In my opinion their recent "enhancements" are more distracting than helpful and have actually detracted from the gameplay. Fortunately, the developers have left in the option to play in tty mode and I've found the game far more interesting to play that way (follow the instructions in the defaults.nh file).

One final note. Most of these games also allow you to download and compile the source code. You are free to modify and create your own changes for the games. If you create something that the developers like they may even adopt it for later versions! Try the links below, read about the games, choose one and try playing one of these great games for a while!

For more information and a more detailed history of Rogue-Like Games see:
Balrog - A catalog of virtually all games in this genre http://www.mo.himolde.no/~knan/roguelike/
Rogue- The history per one of its creators http://www.wichman.org/roguehistory.html
Hack and NetHack– http://www.hut.fi/~eye/roguelike/nethack.html
Roguelike Review Home Page - http://txe.swa.com/roguelike/

Rogue is available for FREE at: http://www.win.tue.nl/~kroisos/rogue/
NetHack is available for FREE at: http://www.nethack.org/
Slash'emis available for FREE at: http://slashem.sourceforge.net/
Zangbandis available for FREE at: http://www.zangband.org/
Omegais available for FREE at: http://www.alcyone.com/max/projects/omega/
A.D.O.M. is available for FREE at: http://www.adom.de/
Dungeon Crawlis available for free at: http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/

The Google directory can lead you to other sites: http://directory.google.com/Top/Games/Video_Games/Genres/Roleplaying/Rogue-like/
You can play Advanced Rogue and other great games for free online by telnet at Chung Kuo BBS. Unfortunately, a recent check found a message that the site could no longer be maintained so it is probably offline forever.
Some pages with hints, spoilers, tips and other information include:
Eva Myers includes much information on Nethack & Slash'em on her homepage: http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~eva/
Sascha & Ralph's Nethack Site: Nethack & Slash'em spoilers.
Ali's Nethack Page has or links to just about anything you could possibly want to know about Nethack or Slash'em. He also offers downloads of older sources and binaries.

Finally, if there are any questions, comments, corrections, etc. about this page or its contents feel free to CONTACT ME.