Editing Rogue (video game)

{{short description|1980 video game}}
{{Infobox video game
| title = Rogue
| collapsible = 
| state = expanded
| image = Rogue cover.jpg
| caption = 
| developer = A.I. Design (non-Unix versions)
| publisher = {{vgrelease|NA|[[Epyx]] (non-Unix versions)|EU|[[Mastertronic]] (non-Unix versions)}}
| series = 
| engine = 
| released = 1980
| genre = [[Roguelike]]
| modes = [[Single-player video game|Single-player]]
| platforms = [[Amiga]], [[Amstrad CPC]], [[Atari 8-bit]], [[Atari ST]], [[Commodore 64]], [[CP/M]], [[MS-DOS]], [[Classic Mac OS|Macintosh]], [[Nintendo Switch]],[[TOPS-20]], [[TRS-80 Color Computer]], [[Unix]], [[ZX Spectrum]]
| designer = {{plainlist|
* Michael Toy
* [[Glenn Wichman]]
* [[Ken Arnold]]
* Jon Lane
}}
| writer = 
| artist = 
| composer = 
}}
'''''Rogue''''' (also known as '''''Rogue: Exploring the Dungeons of Doom''''') is a [[dungeon crawl]]ing [[video game]] by Michael Toy and [[Glenn Wichman]] with later contributions by [[Ken Arnold]]. ''Rogue'' was originally developed around 1980 for [[Unix]]-based minicomputer systems as a freely distributed executable. It is listed in the 4th [[Berkeley Software Distribution]] UNIX programmer's manual of November 1980, as one of 28 games included (along with [[Zork]], [[Colossal Cave Adventure]], [[Hunt the Wumpus]] and Mike Urban's Aardvark).<ref name="Rogue in UNIX 4BSD manual">{{cite book |last1=Computer Science Division, University of Berkeley, California |editor1-last=Joy |editor1-first=William N. |editor2-last=Babaoğlu |editor2-first=Özalp |editor3-last=Fabry |editor3-first=Robert S. |editor4-last=Sklower |editor4-first=Keith |title=UNIX PROGRAMMER’S MANUAL, Berkely 4.1, Volume 1, Virtual VAX-11 Version |date=November 1980 |publisher=Regents of the University of California |page=639 |edition=1 |url=https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_attunix7thXProgrammersManualVirtualVAX11Version198_124057363/page/6-25/mode/1up?q=%22rogue%22 |access-date=13 May 2025 |language=English |format=scan |chapter=6:Games |quote=Rogue is a computer fantasy game with a new twist.}}</ref> It was later included in the [[Berkeley Software Distribution]] 4.2 operating system (4.2BSD). Commercial ports of the game for a range of personal computers were made by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane under the company A.I. Design and financially supported by the [[Epyx]] software publishers. Additional ports to modern systems have been made since by other parties using the game's now-[[Open-source software|open source]] code.

In ''Rogue'', players control a character as they explore several levels of a dungeon seeking the Amulet of Yendor located in the dungeon's lowest level. The player character must fend off an array of monsters that roam the dungeons. Along the way, players can collect treasures that can help them offensively or defensively, such as weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, and other magical items. ''Rogue'' is turn-based, taking place on a square grid represented in [[ASCII]] or other fixed character set, allowing players to have time to determine the best move to survive. ''Rogue'' implements [[permadeath]] as a design choice to make each action by the player meaningful{{mdash}}should the player-character lose all their health via combat or other means, that player character is dead. The player must restart with a fresh character as the dead character cannot [[Spawning (video games)|respawn]], or be brought back by reloading from a saved state. Moreover, no game is the same as any previous one, as the dungeon levels, monster encounters, and treasures are [[procedural generation|procedurally generated]] for each playthrough.

''Rogue'' was inspired by text-based computer games such as the 1971 ''[[Star Trek (1971 video game)|Star Trek]]'' game and ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure]]'' released in 1976, along with the [[high fantasy]] setting from ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. Toy and Wichman, both students at [[University of California, Santa Cruz]], worked together to create their own text-based game but looked to incorporate elements of procedural generation to create a new experience each time the user played the game. Toy later worked at [[University of California, Berkeley]] where he met Arnold, the lead developer of the [[curses (programming library)|''curses'' programming library]] that ''Rogue'' was dependent on to mimic a graphical display. Arnold helped Toy to optimize the code and incorporate additional features to the game. The commercial ports were inspired when Toy met Lane while working for the [[Olivetti]] company, and Toy engaged with Wichman again to help with designing graphics and various ports.

''Rogue'' became popular in the 1980s among college students and other computer-savvy users in part due to its inclusion in 4.2BSD. It inspired programmers to develop a number of similar titles such as ''[[Hack (Unix video game)|Hack]]'' (1982/1984) and ''[[Moria (1983 video game)|Moria]]'' (1983), though as Toy, Wichman, and Arnold had not released the [[source code]] at this time, these new games introduced different variations atop ''Rogue''. A long lineage of games grew out from these titles. While ''Rogue'' was not the first dungeon-crawling game with procedural generation and [[permadeath]] features, it led to the naming of the [[roguelike]] genre.

==Gameplay==
[[File:Rogue Screen Shot CAR.PNG|thumb|Rogue screenshot CAR]]

The [[player character]] is an adventurer. The game starts at the uppermost level of an unmapped dungeon with myriad monsters and treasures. The goal is to fight a way to the bottom level, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor ("Rodney" spelled backwards), then ascend to the surface.<ref name="edge">{{cite web|url=http://www.next-gen.biz/features/making-rogue|title=The Making Of: Rogue|author=Edge Staff|date=2009-07-03|publisher=Edge Online|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120815191124/http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-rogue |archive-date=2012-08-15}}</ref> Monsters in the levels become progressively more difficult to defeat. Until the Amulet is retrieved, the player cannot return to earlier levels.

===User interface===
[[File:Rogue Screenshot.png|thumb|alt=Screenshot of Rogue|A procedurally generated dungeon in the 1980 version]]

In the original text-based versions, all aspects of the game, including the dungeon, the [[player character]], and monsters, are represented by letters and symbols within the [[ASCII]] character set. Monsters are represented by capital letters (such as <code><big>Z</big>,</code> for zombie), and accordingly there are twenty-six varieties. This type of display makes it appropriate for a [[Computer terminal|non-graphical terminal]]. Later [[Porting|ports]] of ''Rogue'' apply [[Extended ASCII|extended character sets]] to the [[text user interface]] or replace it with [[Tile-based video game|graphical tiles]].

The [[HJKL keys|basic movement keys]] (''h'', left; ''j'', down; ''k'', up; and ''l'', right) are the same as the [[cursor (user interface)|cursor]] control keys in the [[Vi (text editor)|vi]] editor. Other game actions also use single keystrokes—''q'' to quaff a [[potion]], ''w'' to wield a weapon, ''e'' to eat some food, etc. In the [[DOS]] version, the [[Arrow keys|cursor keys]] specify movement, and the fast-move keys (''H'', ''J'', ''K'', and ''L'') are supplanted by use of the [[scroll lock]] key.

Each [[Level (video games)|dungeon level]] consists of a grid of three rooms by three rooms (potentially); dead-end hallways, T-forks, or bending passageways sometimes appear where rooms would be expected. Lower levels can include a [[maze]] in place of a room. Unlike most [[adventure game]]s of the time of the original design, the dungeon layout and the placement of objects within are [[Random dungeon|randomly generated]].

==Development==
===At UC Santa Cruz===
The concept of ''Rogue'' originated with Michael Toy and [[Glenn Wichman]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://users.tkk.fi/~eye/roguelike/rogue.html|title=Rogue – Exploring the Dungeons of Doom (1980) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217100401/http://users.tkk.fi/~eye/roguelike/rogue.html |archive-date=December 17, 2007|first=Petri|last=Kuittinen|date=Jun 12, 2001}}</ref> Toy grew up in [[Livermore, California]], where his father was a nuclear scientist. Once a year, his father's workplace allowed employees' families to visit, which included allowing them to use the facility's mainframe system to play games. Toy took interest in the text-based ''[[Star Trek (1971 video game)|Star Trek]]'' game (1971), which represented space combat through characters on screen, and required players to make strategic decisions each turn. Toy took to learn programming and recreate this game on other computer systems that he could access, including the [[Processor Technology]] [[Sol-20]] and the [[Atari 400]].<ref name="chaddock chp2">{{cite book|last1=Craddock|first1=David L|editor1-last=Magrath|editor1-first=Andrew|title=Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games|date=August 5, 2015|publisher=Press Start Press|isbn=978-0-692-50186-3|chapter=Chapter 2: "Procedural Dungeons of Doom: Building Rogue, Part 1"}}</ref>

Toy subsequently enrolled in computer science at the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]] (UCSC) in the late 1970s. Working first on UCSC's [[PDP-11]] and then its [[VAX-11]], Toy began exploring what games were available over [[ARPANET]], the predecessor of the current Internet. One game that intrigued him was ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure]]'' (also known as ''Adventure'') (1976) by [[William Crowther (programmer)|William Crowther]] and [[Don Woods (programmer)|Don Woods]]. ''Adventure'', considered the first text-based [[adventure game]], challenged the player to explore a cave system through descriptions given by the computer and commands issued by the player. Toy was impressed by the game and started writing his own.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/>

Toy met Wichman, another student at UCSC who was also writing his own adventure game. Wichman had created his own variations on traditional role-playing games such as ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' while growing up. Wichman had chosen UCSC specifically to study game design to become a board-game developer, and this led him into the computer sciences to get the opportunity to play and develop games. The two became friends, shared an apartment, and challenged each other with their own adventure game creations. Of the two, Toy was more proficient at coding, while Wichman had a better sense of the design of these games. Toy and Wichman soon found that most adventure games suffered from a lack of replayability, in that the game did not change on separate playthroughs.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="Wichman">{{cite web | url=http://www.wichman.org/roguehistory.html | title=A Brief History of Rogue | first1=Glenn R. | last1=Wichman | author-link=Glenn Wichman | year=1997 | access-date=August 7, 2013 | url-status=usurped | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150217024917/http://www.wichman.org/roguehistory.html | archive-date = February 17, 2015}}</ref>

Around this time, ca. 1980, [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD Unix]] had started to gain a foothold as the operating system for many of the University of California's campuses. One element of the BSD distribution at this point included the [[curses (programming library)|''curses'' programming library]] by [[Ken Arnold]]. ''curses'' enabled a programmer to place characters at any point on a terminal, effectively allowing for "graphical" interfaces.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> When Toy saw this library, he and Wichman quickly realized the potential for it. After crafting a few games using ''curses'' to learn the library, they came up with the idea of an adventure game in the flavor of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', but, to address their concerns with the static nature of adventure games, wanted to include elements that would change every time the game was played. The two came up with a narrative, that of an adventurer setting out to explore and find treasures in the Dungeons of Doom, specifically the Amulet of Yendor (a renowned wizard in the game whose name is derived from "Rodney" spelled backwards).<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> Wichman came up with the name ''Rogue'', based on the idea that unlike the party-based systems of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', the player's character was going at this alone. They also wanted to make sure the name was short to make it simple to type on command lines.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="Wichman"/>

As Toy was more proficient at programming, he led the development of the game in the [[C (programming language)|C language]], which generally produced fast, effective code.
Wichman learned the language from Toy as they went along while providing significant input on the design of the game.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="Wichman"/>
The first two major aspects of the game that they developed were the method of displaying the dungeon on-screen to the player, and how to generate the dungeon in a random manner.
Limited by choices of what a terminal could display, they stuck to [[ASCII]] characters, such as <code>.</code> for empty floor space, <code>+</code> for doors, and <code>|</code> and <code>-</code> for walls of the dungeon. They also used the "at" symbol (<code>@</code>) to represent the player, considering this showed the player "where they're at".<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> For the dungeon, they found initial attempts at purely random generation to be weak, in some cases having a stairway ending up in a room inaccessible to players. They found a solution through [[procedural generation]], where each level would start on the idea of a 3x3 [[tic-tac-toe]] grid, with each room of various size occupying one space in this grid, and then creating the hallways to connect the rooms.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> Once they could have their character move about these randomly created dungeons, they added equipment, magic items, and monsters. With magic items, they wanted the effects of these items to be a mystery on each run-through, and thus would initially present the items to the player only by a descriptor such as color, and only later in the game give the true name of the item once the player experimented or used another means to identify the item.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> For monsters, they wanted to have more advanced intelligence routines as the player got deeper in the dungeons, but had started running into memory limits on the VAX-11, and simply made the monsters stronger with more health to pose more of a challenge.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="edge"/>

The two started testing the game with other students at UCSC, finding that despite the limited graphics, players were filling the gaps with their own imagination.
Playtester feedback helped them to improve the procedural generation routines to balance the game's challenge.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="edge"/>
One element that fell out from playtesting was the use of [[permadeath]].
Toy wanted to move away from the notion of simply learning the right sequence of steps to complete the game, which was usual in adventure games, and instead make the player focus on finding the right moves to avoid the character's death at that moment;<ref name="chaddock chp2"/>
Wichman later called this idea "consequence persistence".<ref>{{cite web | url = https://kotaku.com/rogue-creator-says-we-need-a-better-word-for-permadeath-1786822855 | title = Rogue Creator Says We Need A Better Word For Permadeath | first = Tony | last =  Carnevale | date = September 19, 2016 | access-date = September 19, 2016 | work = [[Kotaku]]}}</ref> Initially, a ''Rogue'' game had to be completed in one sitting, but by demand of playtesters, Toy and Wichman added the ability to save the state of the game, so that players could continue a game across sessions.
They soon found players were "save scumming", reloading the game from the save file, an approach counter to their design goals. They changed this so that the save file was erased upon reloading the game, thus making a character's death effectively permanent.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> They subsequently added a scoreboard feature that let players rank their progress with others, rewarding players with more points for surviving as deep as possible into the dungeons and making the Amulet of Yendor a lucrative goal.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/>

Around 1982, Toy's attention to ''Rogue'' and computer games caused him to suffer poor academic performance, and he was kicked out of the school, shortly finding employment at [[University of California, Berkeley]] (UCB) in their computer lab. Toy took the ''Rogue'' code with him to continue its development.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/> Wichman, still enrolled at UCSC, continued to help develop ''Rogue'' for a time, such as adding armor elements, but the logistics of working over the distance made it difficult for him to keep up, and he let Toy fully take over development.<ref name="chaddock chp2"/><ref name="Wichman"/>

===At UC Berkeley===
Prior to Toy's arrival at UCB, Ken Arnold had gotten to play ''Rogue'', which had been distributed as an executable across many of the UC campuses. Though impressed with the game, he expressed frustration at the inefficient means the game updated the screen via his ''curses'' library over a [[modem]] line.<ref name="chaddock chp3">{{cite book|last1=Craddock|first1=David L|editor1-last=Magrath|editor1-first=Andrew|title=Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games|date=August 5, 2015|publisher=Press Start Press|isbn=978-0-692-50186-3|chapter=Chapter 3: "Rodney and the Free Market: Building Rogue, Part 2"}}</ref> He had ideas for how to fix it, but at this point Toy and Wichman had opted not to release the code.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/>

When Toy arrived at UCB in 1982, he sought out Arnold to get insight into the nature of how the ''curses'' library worked. After the two had gotten to know each other, Toy allowed him access to ''Rogue''{{'}}s source code.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> In addition to helping to improve the interface and rendering of the game, Arnold helped to improve the procedural generation aspects of the game.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/>

With its popularity on the UCB servers, ''Rogue'' was selected as one of the game titles included in the 1983 distribution of [[Berkeley Software Distribution#4.2BSD|4.2 BSD]], which spread across ARPANET and quickly gained popularity among colleges and facilities with access to this hardware. Among its fans included UNIX's co-developer [[Ken Thompson]] working at [[Bell Labs]]; [[Dennis Ritchie]] had joked at the time that ''Rogue'' was "the biggest waste of CPU cycles in history".<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> ''Rogue''{{'}}s distribution in 4.2 BSD did not include its source code, so after Toy and Arnold separately left UCB, they took the code with them, making it difficult for anyone to build off it. ''Rogue''{{'}}s source was eventually added under a [[BSD licenses|BSD software license]] within 4.3 BSD in 1986, putting it into the [[Open-source software|open source]].<ref name="chaddock chp5">{{cite book|last1=Craddock|first1=David L|editor1-last=Magrath|editor1-first=Andrew|title=Dungeon Hacks: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the Course of Video Games|date=August 5, 2015|publisher=Press Start Press|isbn=978-0-692-50186-3|chapter=Chapter 5: "When the Inmates Run the Asylum - Hack-ing at Lincoln-Sudbury High School"}}</ref>

===At ''A.I. Design''===
[[File:Rogue for atari st screenshot.png|thumb|right|The [[Atari ST]] version of ''Rogue'' using graphical tiles created by ''A.I.&nbsp;Design'' and Epyx]]

Toy left UCB sometime before 1984 and took a consulting position with [[Olivetti]], an Italian typewriter company that at the time were starting development of their own computer based on the [[IBM Personal Computer]] (IBM PC) operating system.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> There, he met one of Olivetti's computer system administrators, Jon Lane.
Lane had previously seen the popularity of ''Rogue'' among the United States location he managed, had played the game himself, and was familiar with Ritchie's observations on ''Rogue''.<ref name="edge"/>
Upon meeting Toy, Lane proposed the idea of porting ''Rogue'' to the IBM PC as a commercial product, and Toy agreed.
They founded the company ''A.I. Design'' to port and market the game. Though Toy's source code was necessary for the porting, Lane had to redevelop many of the routines for the game's interface. Lane took advantage of the more graphical [[Code page 437]] character set on PC to expand the number of symbols to represent the dungeon, such as using a happy-face <code>☺</code> for the player-character. They also took steps to avoid potential copyright issues with [[TSR (company)|TSR]], the company that owned ''Dungeons & Dragons'' at that time, by changing the names of monsters like [[Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)|kobolds]] that were unique to that game.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/><ref name="edge"/>

Toy and Lane initially funded the publishing, distribution, and promotion of the IBM PC version themselves, and though they continued to gain sales, they were only able to break even as they lacked the power of a larger distributor.
Around 1984, Robert Borch, the vice president of publishing at [[Epyx]] discovered that ''Rogue'' had become popular with several of Epyx's employees, who suggested that Epyx should help fund ports to other systems.
Though Borch felt there was niche appeal to the game, he followed this advice and contracted ''A.I. Design'' to port the game to the [[Mac (computer)|Macintosh]] and [[Amiga]] upon which Epyx would take over distribution and marketing.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/>

Toy obtained a Macintosh and took the lead in porting the game to that system. Toy and Lane recognized that they could implement improved graphics with the Macintosh version, but neither had art skills to make the icons. Toy reached out to Wichman to help with these graphics. Wichman was initially cautious due to the fact that his credit for ''Rogue'' in the PC version had been cast as a "contribution" equal to the UCSC playtesters rather than as equal to Toy, Arnold, or Lane,<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> but ultimately agreed to help and joined ''A.I. Design''. Much of the Macintosh version was developed in concert by Toy, Wichman, and Lane in a cabin at the [[Squaw Valley Ski Resort]].<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> Following this, Epyx requested that Wichman lead the development of the [[Atari ST]] version, with the company providing Wichman a system to work on. This work occurred alongside Toy's work on the Amiga version. Wichman enlisted help from an Epyx in-house artist, Michael Kosaka, to create the art on the Atari ST version.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> Epyx would also fund ''A.I. Design'' to port the game to other systems including the [[TRS-80 Color Computer]].<ref name="Wichman"/>

Borch recognized the difficulty in marketing ''Rogue'' through traditional methods compared to other games on the market at that time, and opted to push the title through software catalogs rather than retail channels. Though it sold well initially, ''Rogue''{{'}}s sales quickly declined, and it was considered a commercial flop. Besides the competition from more graphically interesting games, Wichman attributed the failure to the fact that the commercial version of ''Rogue'' was essentially the same game previously offered for free via BSD and did not pose a new challenge.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/> Epyx eventually went bankrupt in 1989, and ''A.I. Design'' disbanded. None of Toy, Wichman, Arnold, or Lane profited greatly from ''Rogue'', though they became renowned in the industry for their participation on the game.<ref name="chaddock chp3"/>

===Other ports===
In 1988, the budget software publisher [[Mastertronic]] released a commercial port of ''Rogue'' for the [[Amstrad CPC]], [[Commodore 64]], [[Atari 8-bit computers]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-rogue_4431.html |title=Atari 8-bit Rogue |work=Atarimania.com |access-date=2010-09-02}}</ref> and [[ZX Spectrum]].<ref>[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0004224 ''Rogue'' by Mastertronic] from [[World of Spectrum]]</ref>

Numerous clones exist for modern [[operating system]]s such as [[Microsoft Windows]],<ref>[http://www.prankster.com/winrogue/ Rogue for Windows] from Prankster.com</ref> [[Mac OS X]],<ref>[http://sourceforge.net/projects/roguedarwin/ Rogue for OS X] from [[SourceForge]]</ref> [[Palm OS]],<ref>[http://roguelike-palm.sourceforge.net/ Roguelikes for PalmOS] from SourceForge</ref> [[Linux]],<ref name="sauce">{{cite web|url=http://roguelikes.sauceforge.net/pub/rogue/index.html|title=The Rogue Home Page|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080715035939/http://roguelikes.sauceforge.net/pub/rogue/index.html|archive-date=July 15, 2008}} with various versions of ''Rogue''</ref> [[Comparison of BSD operating systems|BSD OSs]],<ref name="sauce" /> and [[iOS]].<ref>[http://toucharcade.com/2008/11/29/classic-dungeon-crawler-rogue-comes-to-the-iphone/ Classic Dungeon Crawler Rogue Comes to the iPhone] from TouchArcade.com</ref> It is even included in the base distribution of [[NetBSD]] and [[DragonFly BSD]].

<gallery widths="200px" heights="130px">
File:4.3 BSD UWisc VAX Emulation LS.png|[[BSD|4.3 BSD]] from the [[University of Wisconsin]], {{Circa|1987}}. ''Rogue'' is shown in "/usr/games".
File:4.3 BSD UWisc VAX Emulation Rogue Manual.png|4.3 BSD displaying the [[man page]] for ''Rogue'' </gallery> 
In July 2024, the Amiga version of the game was re-released for the [[Nintendo Switch]]. This version includes modern features, such as  display filters, leaderboards, a choice of soundtracks, new achievements, and a save function.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Yarwood |first=Jack |date=2024-07-19 |title=The Game That Inspired The Term 'Roguelike' Is Now Available On Switch |url=https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/07/the-game-that-inspired-the-term-roguelike-is-now-available-on-switch |access-date=2024-07-20 |website=Time Extension |language=en-GB}}</ref>

==Automated play==
Because the input and output of the original game is over a terminal interface, it is relatively easy in Unix to redirect input and output to another program. One such program, [[Rog-O-Matic]], was developed in 1981 to play and win the game, by four graduate students in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh: [[Andrew Appel]], Leonard Harney, Guy Jacobson and [[Michael Loren Mauldin]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://science-fiction.fch.ir/rogue/doc/An_expert_system_outperforms_mere_mortals_as_it_conquers_the_feared_Dungeons_of_Doom.html |title=An expert system outperforms mere mortals as it conquers the feared Dungeons of Doom |access-date=2014-03-12 |author=A. K. Dewdney |work="Scientific American", volume 252, issue 2, February 1985, pp. 18–21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315043642/http://science-fiction.fch.ir/rogue/doc/An_expert_system_outperforms_mere_mortals_as_it_conquers_the_feared_Dungeons_of_Doom.html |archive-date=2014-03-15}}</ref>

{{cquote|In a test during a three-week period in 1983, Rog-O-Matic had a higher median score than any of the 15 top Rogue players at the Carnegie-Mellon University and, at the University of Texas at Austin, found the Amulet of Yendor in a passageway on the 26th level, continued on to the surface and emerged into the light of day.}}

Ken Arnold said that he liked to make "sure that every subsequent version of ''Rogue'' had a new feature in it that broke Rogue-O-Matic".<ref name="gamasutra history">{{cite web|url=https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-history-of-rogue-have-you-you-deadly-zs|title= The History of Rogue: Have @ You, You Deadly Zs}}</ref> Nevertheless, it remains a noted study in [[expert system]] design and led to the development of other game-playing programs, typically called "bots". Some of these bots target other roguelikes, in particular ''[[Angband (video game)|Angband]]''.<ref name="angborg">{{cite web |url=http://www.thangorodrim.net/borg.html |title=Angband Borg |access-date=2007-12-23 |work=Thangorodrim – The Angband Page |archive-date=2012-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223094530/http://www.thangorodrim.net/borg.html |url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Reception==
In March 1984, [[Jerry Pournelle]] named the version of ''Rogue'' for the IBM PC his "game of the month", describing it as "a real time trap. I found myself thinking 'just one more try' far too often".<ref name="pournelle198403">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-03/1984_03_BYTE_09-03_Simulation#page/n47/mode/2up | title=New Machines, Networks, and Sundry Software | work=BYTE | date=March 1984 | access-date=22 October 2013 | author=Pournelle, Jerry | pages=46}}</ref> The game was reviewed in 1986 in ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'' #112 by Hartley and Pattie Lesser in the "Role of Computers" column.<ref name="Dragon112">{{cite journal |title=The Role of Computers |author=Lesser, Hartley and Pattie |journal=Dragon |issue=112 |date=August 1986 |pages=23–26}}</ref> In a subsequent column, the reviewers gave the IBM and Mac versions of the game 3½ out of 5 stars.<ref name="Dragon126">{{cite journal |title=The Role of Computers |author=Lesser, Hartley and Patricia |journal=The Dragon |issue=126 |date=October 1987 |pages=82–88}}</ref> ''[[Compute!]]'' favorably reviewed Epyx's Amiga version as improving on the text-based original, stating that "the game will give you many hours of gaming fun".<ref name="stumpf198701">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/1987-01-compute-magazine/Compute_Issue_080_1987_Jan#page/n39/mode/2up | title=Rogue: A Dungeon Adventure | work=Compute! | date=January 1987 | access-date=9 November 2013 | author=Stumpf, Robert J. | pages=39}}</ref> In 2009, ''Rogue'' was named #6 on the "Ten Greatest PC Games Ever" list by ''[[PC World (magazine)|PC World]]''.<ref name="pc_world">{{cite magazine | last=Edwards | first=Benj | title=The Ten Greatest PC Games Ever | magazine=[[PC World (magazine)|PC World]] | date=February 8, 2009 | url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/158850/best_pc_games.html#slide6 | access-date = 2016-05-01}}</ref>

==Legacy==
{{main|Roguelike}}
Because of ''Rogue''{{'}}s popularity at colleges in the early 1980s,<ref name="1Up50">{{cite web |url=http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3123537 | title=The Essential 50 – 12. ''Rogue'' | access-date=2007-12-23 | last=Parish | first=Jeremy | work=[[1UP.com]] | publisher=[[Ziff Davis]] | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120512075036/http://www.1up.com/features/essential-50-rogue | archive-date=2012-05-12}}</ref> other users sought to expand or create similar games. However, as neither Toy, Wichman, nor Arnold released the source code of the game, these efforts generally required the programmers to craft the core game elements from scratch to mimic ''Rogue''. Though there were multiple titles that tried this, the two most significant ones were ''[[Moria (1983 video game)|Moria]]'' (1983) and ''[[Hack (video game)|Hack]]'' (1982). Both games spawned a family of improved versions and clones over the next several years, leading to a wide number of games in a similar flavor. These games, which generally feature turn-based exploration and combat in a [[high fantasy]] setting in a procedurally generated dungeon and employing permadeath, are named [[roguelike]] games in honor of ''Rogue''{{'}}s impact.<ref name="gamasutra history"/> Most of the graphical interface conventions used in ''Rogue'' were reused within these other roguelikes, such as the use of <code>@</code> to represent the player-character.<ref name="gamasutra history"/>

Toy, Wichman, and Arnold reunited onstage for the first time in 30 years in an event called "Roguelike Celebration" at [[San Francisco]] in 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://kotaku.com/rogue-creator-says-we-need-a-better-word-for-permadeath-1786822855|title=Rogue Creator Says We Need A Better Word For Permadeath|last=Carnevale|first=Tony|date=19 September 2016 |language=en-US|access-date=2016-09-20}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==External links==
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* [https://docs.freebsd.org/44doc/usd/30.rogue/paper.pdf A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom] - the original paper by Michael Toy and Kenneth Arnold describing the game
* {{moby game|id=/rogue|name=''Rogue''}}
* {{Internet Archive game|id=ROGUE_PD}}

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