ROGUELIKE

A 'roguelike' is a computer game that borrows some of the elements of the 1980s computer game ''Rogue''. Superficially, a roguelike is a two-dimensional dungeon crawl with simple text or ASCII representation, though many utilize graphic tiles to overcome character set limitations.^[1]
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.
In its heyday, ''Rogue'' was the most popular ''dungeon crawl'' game, in part due to the fact that it was distributed with the Berkeley Software Distribution version of Unix. Rogue - Exploring the Dungeons of Doom (1980) Petri Kuittinen

Contents

Typical gameplay

Usual features

Roguelike family tree

Major roguelikes

Modern roguelikes (still supported or widely played)

Classic roguelikes (influential early roguelike games)

See also

References

Sources

External links

Typical gameplay

These games present a plan 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.

------                             -  Wall                             |....|      ############           #  Unlit hallway  |....|      #          #           .  Lit area  |.$..+########         #           $  Some quantity of gold  |....|       #      ---+---        +  A door  ------       #      |.....|        |  Wall               #      |.!...|        !  A magic potion               #      |.....|               #      |..@..|        @  The adventurer    ----       #      |.....|    |..|       #######+..D..|        D  A dragon    |<.+###    #      |.....|        <  Stairs to the previous level    ----  #    #      |.?...|        ?  A magic scroll          ######      -------

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 applications to separate display from underlying hardware which Unix runs on.

★ The appearance of magical items changes randomly from game to game. A player who finds these items would be told only 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 potion 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" that lets players explore the dungeon without risk of death. Players 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 modern versions are ''Angband'' and its variants. These are based on the game ''Moria'' which is no longer in development.

★ 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 (still supported or widely played)

★ ''Ancient Domains of Mystery'', also called ''ADOM''

★ ''Angband'' and its several variants

★ ''Dwarf Fortress'', a cross between roguelike and god game

★ ''Linley's Dungeon Crawl'', also called ''Dungeon Crawl'' or ''Crawl''

★ ''NetHack'', a descendant of ''Hack''

★ ''Tales of Middle Earth'', also called ''ToME''

Classic roguelikes (influential early roguelike games)

★ ''Rogue''

★ ''Moria''

★ ''Hack''

★ ''Larn''

★ ''Omega''

See also

★ MUD

★ List of roguelikes

References

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Sources

★ Rogue - Exploring the Dungeons of Doom

★ 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

★ Google Groups rec.games.roguelike hierarchy

★ Guide to Roguelike Games

★

★ List of Actively Developing Roguelikes

★ RogueBasin - a MediaWiki-based wiki devoted to roguelikes.

★ Temple of the Roguelike - a web-based roguelikes community