Rogue Free Download [2023]

 Rogue Introduction:

Rogue, also known as Rogue: Exploring the Dungeons of Doom, is a video game created by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman, with later contributions from Ken Arnold. Initially developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputers, it was distributed freely as an executable. Subsequently, it became part of the Berkeley Software Distribution 4.2 operating system (4.2BSD). Commercial versions of the game were developed for various personal computers by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane through their company A.I. Design, with financial support from Epyx software publishers. Other parties have also created modern ports of the game using its open-source code.

In Rogue, players take control of a character navigating multiple dungeon levels in search of the Amulet of Yendor, located in the deepest level of the dungeon. Along the way, players must combat various monsters inhabiting the dungeons. They can collect treasures, including weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, and magical items, to enhance their offensive and defensive capabilities. Rogue is turn-based and presents the game on a square grid using ASCII or other fixed character sets, allowing players to strategize and make calculated moves. The game features permadeath, meaning that if the player character loses all their health, they cannot respawn or be revived, and the player must start with a new character. Additionally, each playthrough is unique because the dungeon levels, monster encounters, and treasures are procedurally generated.

Gameplay:

The inspiration for Rogue came from text-based computer games like the 1971 Star Trek game and the 1976 release of Colossal Cave Adventure, along with the high fantasy elements from Dungeons & Dragons. Toy and Wichman, both students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, collaborated to create their own text-based game, aiming to incorporate procedural generation for a fresh experience with each playthrough. Toy later worked at the University of California, Berkeley, where he met Arnold, the lead developer of the curses programming library crucial for Rogue's graphical display emulation. Arnold contributed to code optimization and additional game features. The commercial ports of Rogue were motivated by Toy's encounter with Lane while working for Olivetti, leading to collaborations with Wichman for graphic design and various ports.

During the 1980s, Rogue gained popularity among college students and computer enthusiasts, partly due to its inclusion in 4.2BSD. It served as an inspiration for programmers who created similar titles like Hack (1982/1984) and Moria (1983). However, since Toy, Wichman, and Arnold had not released the source code at that time, these new games introduced variations on the Rogue concept. A lineage of games emerged from these titles. While Rogue was not the first procedurally generated dungeon crawler with permadeath, it pioneered the subgenre of roguelike role-playing games featuring procedurally generated dungeons, Dungeons & Dragons-like items, and an overhead graphical view (though using ASCII art).

In Rogue, the player character embarks on an adventure starting on the highest dungeon level, which is uncharted and teeming with monsters and treasures. The objective is to progress to the lowest level, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor (spelled "Rodney" backward), and then make their way back to the surface. The difficulty of monsters increases as players descend, and until the Amulet is obtained, players cannot return to previous levels.

In the original text-based versions, all aspects of the game, including the dungeon, player character, and monsters, were represented using letters and symbols from the ASCII character set. Monsters were depicted as capital letters (e.g., Z for zombie), with twenty-six different varieties. This display format made it suitable for non-graphical terminals. Later versions of Rogue introduced extended character sets or graphical tiles to the user interface.

Final Words:

The game employed simple single-key commands for actions like movement (h for left, j for down, k for up, and l for right) and other actions (q for drinking a potion, w for wielding a weapon, e for eating food, etc.). In the DOS version, cursor keys were used for movement, with the scroll lock key replacing the fast-move keys (H, J, K, and L).

Each dungeon level consisted of a grid of three rooms by three rooms, potentially with dead-end hallways and mazes. Unlike most contemporary adventure games, the dungeon layout and the placement of objects were randomly generated.

The concept of Rogue originated with Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. Toy's interest in computer games began when he played the text-based Star Trek game in 1971, which required strategic decision-making. He learned programming and recreated this game on various computer systems, including the Processor Technology Sol-20 and the Atari 400.