💾 Archived View for thrig.me › game › rogue.gmi captured on 2024-08-18 at 18:30:54. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

View Raw

More Information

⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-14)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Rogue

... exploring the Dungeons of Doom

https://thrig.me/src/rogue36.git

A restoration project of rogue from ~1981, or the oldest version I could find on the interwebs at the time (version 3.6.3). Modern compilers really did not like the pre-ANSI code, and there are various random gameplay changes because why not. Probably this version is too easy.

You now have the Amulet of Yendor (b)



                                                            | ...
                                                            | .@.
                                                            -----
















Level: 26  Gold: 7147   Hp: 62(78)  Str: 11  Ac: -4  Exp: 11/5458

Perhaps of interest to those who play or write games in the tradition of rogue is that rogue is not a roguelike under certain definitions, though arguments over the terms roguelike and roguelite are perennial and more likely to be forgotten than resolved. The Berlin Interpretation states that "every action should be available at any point of the game". This rogue fails; traveling upwards is only possible if one has the amulet.

rogue uses but extends vi keys (hjkl); vi lacks the diagonals that rogue sometimes allows (yubn). vim (1991) did not exist when rogue (1980) was written, so saying rogue has vim keys is something of a misnomer.

Stairs

I would argue that rogue does not have stairs. The levels are not persistent, so climbing up (only with the amulet) and then falling back down a trapdoor will take you to a new, randomly generated level. The "stairs" in rogue might instead thought of optional bidirectional teleport pads, as opposed to the trapdoors which are non-optional if one stumbles into one, and only take you downwards. Sil makes great use of the level randomization; the lore is that Morgoth bends the maze to his will, thus readily explaining how the levels may not persist. Other roguelikes such as Brogue persist the levels, so actually do have what might be thought of as stairs.

    --------------------
    |...!.....)........+
    |.*....@....%....K.|
    --------------------

Can you spot the stairs? Modern roguelikes tend to use "<" and ">" for the stairs. rogue does use the "<" and ">" keys to interact with the "%" which represent the "stairs" or what are really optional bidirectional teleport pads. Probably we may use "stairs" because it is short and quick to say, but these stairs are quite abstract, much like how the chess Knight is able to teleport through or over other pieces.

    // command.c
                            case '<':
                                    after = FALSE;
                                    u_level();
                                    break;
    ...
    void
    u_level(void)
    {
        if (winat(hero.y, hero.x) == STAIRS) {
            if (amulet) {
                level--;
                if (level == 0) total_winner();
                new_level();
                msg("You feel a wrenching sensation in your gut.");
                return;
            }
        }
        msg("I see no way up.");
    }

roguelikes?

brogue.gmi

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/Brogue

https://metacpan.org/pod/Game::Xomb

http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php/Sil

https://github.com/sil-quirk/sil-q

Wins

    Top Ten Adventurers:
    Rank    Score   Name
    1       18052   Thrig: A total winner on level 26.
    2       3123    Thrig: killed on level 16 by an invisible stalker.
    3       3066    Thrig: killed on level 17 by a lampades.
    4       2672    Thrig: killed on level 14 by a troll.
    5       2655    Thrig: killed on level 14 by a troll.
    6       2016    Thrig: killed on level 12 by a yeti.
    7       1863    Thrig: killed on level 10 by a centaur.
    8       1269    Thrig: killed on level 8 by an orc.
    9       1192    Thrig: killed on level 8 by a zombie.
    10      946     Thrig: killed on level 7 by a hobgoblin.

Quite a bit of luck is involved; for the above win there was an early Banded mail and some enchant armor scrolls that resulted in a good AC early, and then a very luck genocide scroll I used to wipe out Rust Monsters. A staff of drain life was used to clear out some problematic tough monsters, but ran out fairly quickly. Otherwise, the weapon was a not very good Mace, though fights could go on for a while because of the low AC. Some teleport scrolls and healing potions were used to get out of some tight spots. Player skill is involved in knowing how to best use the random drops, but rogue is a very lethal game, even in my version, which is balanced more towards the easy side than other versions will be.

all 32,763 rogue level maps

tags #rogue #roguelike

dead-end.png