Game #46: Rogue

Rogue is a turn-based dungeon crawler in which the player controls an adventurer who must explore the dangerous Dungeon of Doom. The objective is to retrieve the precious Amulet of Yendor and make it out alive.

Where do you start with a game such as this that is so iconic that it started it’s own sub-genre and whose title has now become a verb within the industry?

Rogue became immensely popular on college mainframe computers and then finally came to home computers in 1980. It is never the same game twice and you can spend hundreds of hours playing it. Rogue was created by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. The game was inspired by text-based computer games such as the 1971 Star Trek game and Colossal Cave Adventure released in 1976. Rogue began to gain in popularity all the way through the 1980s and it introduced the subgenre of roguelike RPG procedurally generated dungeon crawlers which remain extremely popular to this very day. Epyx eventually went bankrupt in 1989 and neither Toy or Wichman profited greatly from Rogue, though they became renowned in the industry for their participation in the game. In 2009, Rogue was named #6 on the “Ten Greatest PC Games Ever” list by PC World.

The game uses ASCII characters to represent locations, items, monsters, and the protagonist himself which shows you don’t need fantastic graphics in order for a game to be great as well as addictive. There are twenty-six different types of monsters, symbolized by their initial letters (e.g. L for Leprechaun). The monsters have different abilities and modes of attack (more on that later). The dungeon and the items in it are randomly generated each time the player begins a new game. Each dungeon level contains a grid of three by three rooms and dead ends.

Levels get progressively more complex and maze-like, and monsters grow in strength the deeper the hero ventures into the dungeon. The player character can acquire better weapons and armor, gain experience points and level up. Should the protagonist perish in the dungeon, the player must restart the game anew.

The plot to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor is reminiscent of the PLATO games that I “cut my teeth on” when I started this blog. The plot may sound cool but retrieving the Amulet is certainly no easy task. The odds are definitely stacked against you and the constant threat of death is very real. You can save your game at any time and it will write your progress to a save file. When you return to the game and restore your saved game file it deletes the file. So permanent death is very real here. When you die you have to start from the very beginning. Now you could cheat, make a copy of your save game file, store it in a different directory, and restore the save game file each time you die, but I wanted to beat the game without cheating. The result? Hidden camera footage would have revealed me making horrible faces, clenching my fist, using words such as “Curses!“, shouting at the walls and stomping my foot petulantly as I died again, and again, and again and again.

Rogue is an extremely difficult game to win. One of the most difficult facets of the game is that you constantly need food. The character you play is always hungry. You replenish your rations by finding them in the dungeon levels but food is scarce and your chances of finding food are not very good. Your quest is to find the Amulet of Yendor but it is dwarfed by your quest to merely find food. The fact that you are slowly starving to death prevents you from hanging around on the lower levels to build up experience. You are instead forced to propel yourself deeper and deeper into the dungeon because you need to eat.

There are 26 different monsters in the game and they make your odds of winning extremely difficult. Aquators are a synonym for the Rust Monster from Dungeons & Dragons and each hit from an Aquator causes your armor to rust and eventually become worthless. This will reduce your Armor Class to 0. Rattlesnakes when they bite you permanently reduce your Strength by 1. The Medusa will confuse you. You start moving around randomly while they gleefully eat you. Vampires are exceedingly dangerous because each time they hit you they permanently drain some of your hit points. Dragons, Griffins, and Jabberwockys are hard to kill and they do a lot of damage.

Rogue comes with one macro. You can setup any combination of keystrokes and execute them at the touch of the button. To set the macro, hold down the Alt key and tap the F9 key. Rogue also has a Fast Play mode. You can activate this feature by pressing the Scroll Lock key. In Fast Play, hitting a direction arrow will move you in that direction until you encounter something – a wall, trap or monster. Diagonal movement is possible if you turn off the NUMLOCK. You can then use your keypad for movement and move diagonally from the number pad. You can repeat actions in the game as many times as you wish by pressing the number and then the key. For example if you press 23 and then s it will have you search a particular area 23 times.

There are a lot of magic items that you can find in the game. All of the items that you find are unidentified and are described using random letters or basically gibberish. If you put on a ring or drink a potion that is unidentified you are taking a terrible chance. There are four different categories of magic items: Rings, Potions, Sticks, and Scrolls.

Rings

Special note. Most of the rings you place on your finger will increase the rate at which you use up food. They make you get hungry more quickly. Since starvation is a constant issue in the game this creates a tactical dilemma.

Ring of Slow Digestion: One of the best, if not THE best item in the game. Many claim it is absolutely necessary to win but I did so without one (more on that later). If you wear two of these rings at the same time you become immune to starvation.

Ring of Teleportation: This is a cursed item and you will pop around randomly all over the dungeon and you’re confused a lot. Great fun.

Ring of Maintain Armor: Useful if you find a great suit of plate armor but remember this makes you hungry more quickly. Leather armor is also immune to Aquators

Ring of Regeneration: This speeds up your healing process and at first blush sounds like a great find but this ring really burns through your food.

Ring of Add Strength: This will plus or minus 1 to 2 points of Strength. If it is minus it is a cursed item.

Ring of Increase Damage: Could be a positive or negative 1 or 2. If negative it is a cursed item.

Ring of Searching: Finds traps and hidden passages. This will find the traps before you trigger them

Ring of Stealth: Monsters are very likely to ignore you unless you attack them. You are not exactly invisible but close.

Ring of Aggravate Monster: This is a cursed item. You put this on and every monster on the dungeon level comes at you like the gravitational pull of the sun. Pro tip: Avoid this one

Ring of Protection: Increases or decreases your Armor Class by 1 or 2. If decreases then it is a cursed item.

Ring of Dexterity: This will add or subtract 1 or 2 points from your Dexterity. If it decreases then it is a cursed item.

Potions

Most of the potions only provide temporary magic. Once you drink a potion it is gone from your inventory.

Potion of Poison: This reduces your strength when you drink it. So….do not drink it

Potion of Gain Strength: The increase in Strength from this potion is permanent. This becomes important because a Potion of Poison, traps, and Rattlesnakes can all lower your Strength score. In one of my many attempts to win, I kept finding so many of these Potions of Gain Strength that I was walking around super buff as if you had stuck an air hose up my ass.

Potion of Restore Strength: This potion is described as making you feel warm all over. This potion restores your current strength to whatever it’s maximum value was; no matter how low it was. This is very powerful if you’ve been walloped by Rattlesnakes, traps, or Potions of Poison.

Potion of Haste Self: This potion allows you move at double your speed. In can come in handy against powerful enemies because you can attack and then step away. The monster has to use it’s move stepping towards you again. So on your turn you attack again and step away. Warning: this potion wears off quickly.

Potion of Magic Detection: This is useful when you first enter a new level. If there is no magic to be found you get the message; “you have a strange feeling for a moment”

Potion of See Invisible: Allows you to see Phantoms which are the only invisible opponents in the game.

Potion of Blindness: This lasts for a long time. Can be counteracted by a Potion of Healing or Extra Healing

Potion of Paralysis: This, wait for it, paralyzes you. Rather than drop this as a useless item however, you can THROW it at monsters. If you hit the enemy they will be paralyzed. When you select the throw item this will not come up as a choice to throw. You will have to check your inventory (this does not count as an action) to see what letter this potion was designated, then choose that letter when asked what you are throwing. A neat trick

Potion of Extra Healing: Heals a whole lotta lumps. If you are NOT injured when you drink this, it permanently raises your maximum hit point total by 2.

Potion of Healing: This will heal some damage. But if you take it when NOT injured, this will permanently increase your hit point total by 1

Potion of Confusion: This potion confuses you and makes you move around randomly for awhile making you much easier to hit as well. Like the Paralysis Potions, you can also throw this at your enemy. True story

Potion of Detect Monster: Usually can find one or two for you at a distance. If there are no monsters on that level you will be given a message “you have a strange feeling”. Loneliness maybe?

Scrolls

Scrolls are like potions and once they are used they disappear. The magic surrounding most of these scrolls is temporary but some are permanent.

Scroll of Create Monster: Could be any kind of monster

Scroll of Teleportation: Randomly places you somewhere else in the dungeon and you are confused for a little while after teleporting.

Scroll of Scare Monster: this is an oddity and I think may be a bug. If you read this scroll the game informs you “you hear scary laughter” but nothing will happen and the scroll disappears. Do NOT read this scroll but instead drop it and step on it. While you are standing on the scroll no monster will attack you. Even if you attack and hit them they are completely unable to attack back. If you accidentally step off of the scroll and back on again however it will disintegrate – unless your inventory is completely full – then you can step on and off of it as much as you want. This is great to keep in your inventory if you get into an encounter on deeper levels that you know you can’t win.

Scroll of Sleep: This causes you to fall asleep. Pray that a monster doesn’t find you while you are sleeping.

Scroll of Hold Monster: Every monster nearby freezes and will stay frozen until you attack it.

Scroll of Agitate Monster: This really pisses the monsters off and they come after you on that level.

Scroll of Vorpalize Weaon: Enchants the weapon you’re wielding against a particular creature type. This is random and could be any one of the 26 monster types. You also gain the ability to blast one of the monsters one time only. For example if your sword becomes vorpalized against Jabberwockys, it will be easier to hit the Jabberwocky and your sword will do a lot more damage. You are also able to use the sword ONCE to ZAP a jabberwocky, vaporizing it. The weapon still remains vorpal against the creature type even though you have used the ZAP option. Warning. If a second scroll is read for the same weapon it will cause your weapon to explode and disappear.

Scroll of Enchant Armor: Improves the protection your armor gives by one point permanently. You can stack bonuses from these scrolls on the same armor. Warning. An aquator can destroy enchantments as easily as the armor itself.

Scroll of Remove Curse: Allows you to let go of cursed items (rings, weapons, armor)

Scroll of Identify: Allows you to identify one item. Very useful

Scroll of Magic Mapping: Fills in the map on the current level you’re on. This is most useful if you haven’t explored the level. Once you have found the Amulet of Yendor it is useful to have a few of these to quickly find the stairs on each level. Rooms that have not yet been entered have a highlighted effect around their entrances which lasts until you have passed through them.

Scroll of Enchant Weapon: This adds one to your chance to hit, or to your damage. They can stack as well. The condition is permanent.

Scroll of Confuse Monster: Your hands glow red, and the next monster you hit will hop around confused

Scroll of Detect Food: If there is no food, “you hear a growling noise very close to you” (yes, it’s your stomach)

Rods, Staves, Wands

Polymorph. Randomly changes the target into a different monster. This could be a much more dangerous monster, so be careful.

Haste Monster. Pro tip: this is really really bad

Light. One zap from this item lights up a dark room permanently. These usually have far more charges than other types of sticks

Lightning. Shoots a powerful lightning bolt at your enemies however much of the time the bolt bounces back and strikes you as well. Pro Tip: It hurts

Magic Missile. Shoots a magic missile at the target. On deeper levels this is the equivalent of shooting spit wads at the monsters and only serves to irritate them

Teleport Away. Teleports the targeted monster away from you but the monster will quickly try to come right back.

Slow Monster. The target moves and attacks at 1/2 speed (see Haste potion).

Fire. Shoots a bolt of flame, which does a medium amount of damage.

Striking: this does a small amount of ranged damage

Teleport To. Teleports a monster to you. Pro Tip: This also is really really bad

Drain Life. Drains some hit points from the target, AND from you. Pro Tip: This also hurts

Cancellation: This negates the affects of a trap. Useful if a trap is blocking an entrance and you’ve no choice but to set it off

I knew I was going to be spending hours on this game. I had purposefully avoided creating posts for the games I was finishing so that I had a backlog. I would be playing Rogue in the background as I was putting the finishing touches on the 1979 list.

There are obviously strategies that you can employ in an attempt to win the game but quite honestly there is simply just a lot of luck involved. I have read that most finished only by finding a Ring of Slow Digestion. This IS certainly a game changer because you can take your time with each level and build experience to better handle the deeper levels. Food is scarce and it is certainly your biggest obstacle. You will find that the difficulty level really ratchets up between levels 19-26 as well.

There were a couple of games where I found the Amulet of Yendor and then began to make my way up and I was quickly killed. What can be extremely frustrating is that in the deeper levels a monster can suddenly just run into you and still kill you almost instantly. This is particularly true of Dragons, Griffins, and Jabberwockys who deal a tremendous amount of damage.

What finally did it for me was finding a Ring of Stealth very early in the game. Many people sing the virtues of the Ring of Slow Digestion but I feel that the Ring of Stealth is absolutely necessary to win. The Ring of Stealth allowed me to very carefully avoid all of the very powerful monsters on the deeper levels. In the game that I won I also found a Ring of Dexterity which increased my Dexterity by 2 and I found that when I ran I was outpacing any monster who chased me rather than at the same speed. I was also extremely lucky in that I found a lot of food early on in the game in which I obtained the Ring of Stealth. I had enough food to get me to the Amulet of Yendor and then it was extremely stressful getting back. There were two different times where I thought I may starve as I made my way back up and then LUCKILY I found food. You can also use the Ring of Stealth to avoid the Aquators and Rattlesnakes and instead attack Ice Monsters, Leprechauns, and Nymphs (which I affectionately refer to as the “push overs”) and build your experience that way.

The ending, after so many hours, was a bit anti-climatic but it was thrilling to finally see the end screen. This is a very difficult game to beat and after many, many, many deaths you begin to feel that the game may be unbeatable. It is amazing how addictive and enjoyable the game is even today. On average, and depending on your luck, it will likely take you 12 to 96 hours to finish the game. Plan on spending hours to days to weeks with this one as you say to yourself; “just one more time”. It is now available on Steam for a little more than $3 and so you can purchase the game and enjoy it here in 2020.