┌─ ROGUE ─┐

Rogue

[TRADITIONAL] by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, Ken Arnold

Rogue is the foundational video game that defined the roguelike genre, created by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman (with later contributions from Ken Arnold and Jon Lane) at UC Berkeley. The game was included in 4BSD UNIX manuals in November 1980 as a C program utilizing the curses library, with approximately 50 KB of source code.

Revolutionary Innovations:

Permadeath - First game to make character death permanent and meaningful
Procedurally generated multi-level dungeons - Every playthrough unique
ASCII-based TUI with iconic @ symbol for player character
Turn-based tactical combat with strategic positioning
vi editor movement keys (h,j,k,l) that became roguelike standard
Item identification mechanics requiring experimentation

Technical Achievement: Implemented sophisticated algorithms for dungeon generation, line-of-sight, and game state management within ~32-64 KB RAM constraints on Unix minicomputers.

Historical Impact: Named and defined the entire roguelike genre, directly inspiring Hack (1982), Moria (1983), and countless successors. Commercial ports by Epyx (North America) and Mastertronic (Europe) brought roguelikes to home computers with added graphical tiles.

Legacy: Established virtually every convention still used in modern roguelikes - from @ player symbol to procedural generation philosophy. Modern open-source ports preserve the original source code under permissive licenses, ensuring continued accessibility.

┌─ INFO ─┐

Released: 1980

Difficulty: HARD

Platforms:

Unix • DOS

┌─ LINEAGE ─┐

Influences:

adventure → dnd-plato

Notable Forks:

hack moria nethack

┌─ FEATURES ─┐

■ Turn Based

■ Grid Based

■ Procedural Generation

■ Permadeath

■ Ascii Graphics

┌─ LINKS ─┐

► Wiki ► Roguebasin