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Exploring Roguelike Games Also by the author Bug Voyage (2017) Someone Set Us Up The Rom, Part 1 (2017) Someone Set Us Up The Rom, Part 2 (2017) 21 Unexpected Games to Love for the Atari VCS (2018) Extended Play (fanzine) (2018) Memories of Arcadia (2019) 8 Bit Obituaries (2019) Level Up! A JRPG Creator’s Handbook (2019) Exploring Roguelike Games John Harris First edition published 2021 by CRC Press 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487–2742 and by CRC Press 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. 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Library of Congress Cataloging-in‑Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-51372-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-48259-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-05357-6 (ebk) Typeset in Minion Pro by Apex CoVantage, LLC Thanks to: Simon Carless, former publisher and editor of GameSetWatch Matt Matthews, friend and mathematician Glenn Wichmann, Andrew Doull, Darren Gray, Pasi “paxed” Kallinen, Tarn Adams, Rodain Joubert, Rich Carlson, Robin Bandy, Daniel Ploog, Greg Johnson, Jeff Lait, Anna Anthropy, Dr. Julia Griffin and everyone who has ever taken up a parenthesis in battle And Zeno Rogue, for corrections to a previous edition — In memory of: Robert Pietkivitch, creator of XRogue Noah Morgan, creator of Larn Izchak Miller, major contributor to NetHack Phosphorous, artist and illustrator of the first two Strange Adventures in Infinite Space games They may each have passed but once, but their work will kill players forever Contents Notes on the Text xix About the Author xxi 1 An Introduction to Some Rogues 1 1.1“Is That a Computer Game or Bad ASCII Art?”��1 1.2“But It Helped Me Last Time!”��2 1.3Part Hack and Slash, Part Scientific Method��2 Section I Basics 2 What the Hell Does Q Do Again? 7 2.1Behold the Wonders of vi��7 2.2News (or Rather, Keys) You Can Use��8 3 A View of the Field 11 3.1Cats vs. Dogs, Joel vs. Mike, NetHack vs. Angband��13 4 Tips for Travel in Gridland 17 4.1About Diagonals�� 17 4.2About Doors�� 18 4.3Dealing with Missile Users and Spellcasters�� 18 4.4Dealing with Wand Users��19 4.5About Speed��20 4.6Escape, Regeneration and Loops��20 5 Brought to You Today by the Letter “Q” 23 5.1First Problem: There Are Only 26 Letters��23 5.2Second Problem: Finding Monsters for the Less-Common Letters��24 5.3Sources��26 6 Check and Mate 27 6.1Permadeath Defined��27 6.2Critical Moments��28 6.3Fleeing��29 6.4Items��30 6.5The First Law of Roguelikes��30 6.6Situational Danger and Improving State��32 vii 6.7Cockatrices��32 6.7.1Medusa��33 6.7.2High-Level Magic Users��33 6.8Ray Users��34 Section II Theory 7 The Berlin Interpretation 37 7.1High Value Factors��38 7.1.1Random Environment Generation��38 7.2 Permadeath��38 7.2.1Turn-Based��39 7.2.2Grid-Based��39 7.2.3Non-Modal��39 7.2.4Complexity��39 7.2.5Resource Management��40 7.2.6Hack’n’slash��40 7.2.7Exploration and Discovery��40 7.3Low Value Factors��41 7.3.1Single Player Character��41 7.3.2Monsters Are Similar to Players��41 7.3.3Tactical Challenge��42 7.3.4ASCII Display��42 7.3.5Dungeons��43 7.3.6Numbers��43 8 Roguelikes and OD&D 45 8.1That Roguelike Feeling��45 8.2Seriously, Prankster Wizards��47 8.3“Storytelling” in Roguelikes��47 9 Storytelling, Bah! 49 10 Pushing the Silver Boulder 51 10.1Ever Since I Was a Young Boy, I’ve Played the Silver Ball�� 51 10.2A Little History of Pinball��52 10.3Basics of Pinball��52 10.4Williams Mutual: Invest in Our Portfolio of Bumpers and Ramps��53 10.5The Point of Impulse, Described and Examined��53 10.6From Dendrite to Finger Muscle��54 10.7Vector A + Vector B + Vector C -> Outlane��55 11 I Never Meta Rogue I Didn’t Like 57 11.1Remembering Dragons, Beloved Developers and the Whole Wide World��58 11.2Civic Improvement through Reincarnation��58 11.3“Oh Darn, It’s ‘Kill the Hero Day’ in the Dungeons of Doom”��59 11.4But Really, Why Is That So Cool?��60 11.5But Really Really, Why Is This So Cool?��60 Section III NetHack 12 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 1 63 12.1 Nightshade, Chaotic Female Elven Wizard, March 20, 2002, played by nyra��63 viii Contents 12.2Ciompi259, Neutral Male Human Tourist, February 22, 2004, played by Robert R. Schneck��64 12.3Glossary of rec.games.roguelike.nethack Terms��65 12.4Acknowledgments��66 13 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 2 67 13.1Edward, Chaotic Male Elven Wizard Extinctionist, Ascended, played by Matthew E. Bourland��67 13.2Patito, Neutral Male Gnomish Healer Pacifist, Ascended, played by Andreas Dorn��68 13.3Zadir, Neutral Female Human Priest, Killed by Overexertion, played by legopowa��69 14 Thou Art Early, but We’ll Admit Thee 71 14.1Death by Inches��72 14.2Death by Logic��72 14.3Deadly Reading�� 74 14.4The Most Obscure Death��75 15 I Believe It Not! 77 15.1Strange Objects��78 15.1.1Sinks��78 15.1.2Shirts��78 15.1.3Graves��78 15.2Fortunes��78 15.3The Rogue Level��79 15.4Cultural Borrowings��79 15.5Coyotes��79 15.6Incidental Messages��80 15.7Hallucination Messages��80 15.8Shocking the Gods��80 16 How to Win at NetHack 83 16.1Recognize How Safe You Are at the Start of the Game��83 16.2Do Not Give the Game Excuses to Kill You��84 16.3Build the Essential Intrinsics as Soon as Possible��85 16.4Learn the Most Dangerous Monsters��85 16.5Build Equipment for Overcoming Game Obstacles��86 16.6Know How to Deal with the Gods��87 16.7Know What Is Safe to Eat��88 16.8Learn about Elbereth��88 16.9Use Some Identification Tricks��89 16.10Make the Most of Your Pets��89 16.11Know How to Deal with Shops��89 16.12Be Aware of Special Areas��90 16.13Other Things��92 17 Spoiled for Options 95 17.1A Question with No Right Answer? Well Actually . . .��95 17.2“So It’s Great, but I’m Still Not Sold . . .”��96 17.3The Guiltless Confession��96 17.4“My Valkyrie Puts All Her Skill Points into ‘Google Lore’!”��97 18 Hack Hacks 99 18.1Color Alchemy��100 18.2Enhanced Artifacts��100 18.3Biodiversity�� 101 Contents ix 18.4Grudge�� 101 18.5Pet Ranged Attack�� 101 18.6New Bigrooms, New Castles, New Medusa Lairs, New Sokoban Levels��102 18.7Heck��102 19 A Quick Look at the NetHack Sources 105 19.1GCC Hits! Your Brain Is Eaten!��106 19.2“NetHack Contains Everything Including the Kitchen Sink,” Eh? Not Anymore, Fool!��107 19.3At Last We Can Add Godzilla as a Monster��107 19.4That’s How . . . But Why?��108 19.5Knowing What Not to Change��108 20 Balancing a Game That Looks Balanceless 109 20.1Wishing for Wishes�� 110 20.2Nurse Dancing�� 110 20.3Polypiling�� 110 20.4Succubus Dancing�� 111 20.5Current Problems�� 111 20.5.1Pudding Farming�� 111 20.5.2Pestilence Farming��112 21 SLASH’EM: NetHack Intensified 113 21.1Beyond the Kitchen Sink�� 113 21.2The Dungeon Is Beta Software, Features May Be More Awesome Than Your Universe Will Allow�� 114 21.3More?�� 115 21.4Even More?�� 116 21.5Dear God, Still More?�� 116 21.6But Why?�� 117 21.7Source�� 118 22 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 1 119 22.1Things Most People Can Win��120 22.2Things Experienced ‘Hackers Can Win��120 22.3Things Really Good Players Can Win��121 22.4Things the Very Best Can Win��121 22.5Things marvin Can Win��121 22.6Things You Won’t Want to Win��121 23 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 2 Section IV 123 Dungeon Crawl 24 Before Learning to Walk, One Must First Crawl 129 24.1Shrek Ain’t Too Happy to See Me��129 24.2More Early Bullies of the Dungeon��130 24.3Roadmap to Monsterland��130 24.4Tips for Identification, Conservation, Mastication and Eradication��132 24.5Seventh Floor: Housewares, Home Appliances, Customer Service, and Geryon, Gatekeeper of Hell��133 25 Crawl: Skills and Advancement 137 25.1Crawl’s Experience System��137 x Contents 25.2Race, Class, Stats and Deity: The Four Facts of Crawl Existence��139 25.3How Crawl Steers Characters along Their Path��140 26 Crawl: Skill Overview 143 26.1Overall Skills: Fighting and Spellcasting��144 26.2Weapon Skills: Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes, Polearms, Maces & Flails, Unarmed Combat��145 26.3Missile Skills: Bows, Crossbows, Slings, Darts and Throwing��146 26.4Miscellaneous Skills: Stabbing, Stealth, Dodge, Armor, Shields, Traps & Doors, Invocations and Evocations�� 147 26.5Primary Magic Skills: Conjurations, Summonings, Enchantments, Translocation, Transmutation, Divination, Necromancy, Poison Magic.��150 26.6Elemental Magic Skills: Fire Magic, Ice Magic, Air Magic, Earth Magic.��151 27 Crawl: Interesting Class and Race Pairs 153 27.1Some Words about Engines and Recommended Classes��153 27.2Spriggan Enchanter��154 27.3Deep Dwarf Paladin��156 27.4Hill Orc Priest��157 27.5Human Wanderer��158 27.6Minotaur Chaos Knight of Xom��159 28 Crawl: Travel Functions and Play Aids 161 28.1O: Auto-Explore�� 161 28.2Shift-X and Ctrl-G: Level Search and Autotravel��163 28.3Ctrl-F: Stash Management��164 28.4Other Player Helps��164 29 Crawl: Dungeon Sprint 167 29.1On Choices: Map, Race and Role��167 29.2Sprint: Dungeon Crawl Intensified��168 29.3To Save a Few Dozen Lives: A Guide to the Early Rooms��168 Section V ADOM 30 ADOM, NetHack with a Goatee 175 30.1The Guise of the Overworld��175 30.2Our Very Special Quest Stars�� 176 30.3For the Love of Purple ‘t’�� 176 30.4Why Is the Trollish Warrior Fleeing from That Kitty-Cat?��177 30.5Damnation by Degrees��177 30.6The Bizarre Cathedral��178 31 Things to Do While Visiting Ancardia 179 31.1Save a Puppy!��179 31.2Make the Plains Safe for Adventurers!��179 31.3Kill the Mad Carpenter! (or Cure His Madness)��180 31.4Perform Last Rites for a Dying Sage! (or . . . .)��180 31.5Collect . . . Um . . . Strange Items!�� 181 31.6Source�� 181 32 Interview: Thomas Biskup on ADOM 183 32.1Acknowledgments��195 Contents xi Section VI Mystery Dungeon 33 The Delights of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 199 33.1Part 1: Why You Should Play This Game��199 33.2Part 2: For New Players��202 33.3Sources��206 34 Architecture of the Mystery Dungeon 207 34.1Mysterious Lineage��207 34.2The Afterlife Looks Familiar��208 34.3Level 3 Town, with Population 750 and 40 Hit Points�� 211 35 Fei’s Problems 213 36 Taloon’s Mystery Dungeon, in Great Detail 217 36.1Acknowledgments��232 37 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 1 233 37.1Overview��234 37.1.1Field Raider��237 37.1.2Kimen-Musha and Ghost Musha��237 37.1.3Peetan��240 37.1.4Minion of Death��240 38 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 2 243 38.1Skeleton Mage��243 38.2Dark Owl��247 38.3Kid Tank��247 38.4Pumkorepkin��248 38.5Debuta��249 38.6Healer Rabbit��249 39 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 3 251 39.1Flame Priest��251 39.2Norojo��251 39.3Kigni Tribe��254 39.4Soldier Ant��258 40 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 4 261 40.1Gyazar��263 40.2Master Chicken��265 40.3Minotaur��265 40.4Norojo’s Big Sister��268 40.5Karakuroid��272 Section VII Various Roguelikes 41 Angband: At Last! 277 41.1The Journey of a Hundred Levels��277 41.2Because a Game Called “Valinor” Would Be Boring��278 41.3Ancient Foes Compared: Angband vs. NetHack��279 41.4“You Enter a Maze of Down Staircases . . .”��280 41.5The Game with the Vaunted Vaults��281 41.6Source��282 xii Contents 42 Cause for Incursion 283 42.1Inexpensive Timeshares Now Available in the Caves of Carnage��284 42.2Missing Fingers Surprisingly Reluctant to Grow Back��285 42.3Not Exactly a DM’s Guide Put through a Compiler . . . .��285 42.415 Minutes to Roll Up, 5 Minute Life Expectancy��286 42.5“The Key Does Not Fit That Horse!”��287 42.6“Congratulations, Mortal! You Have Won thBRRGG^^&#-General Protection Fault at $0CFF3E”��287 42.7Supplemental: What Is Vancian Magic, and How Does It Apply to Dungeons & Dragons and/or Roguelikes?��288 43 Brogue and the Abandoning of Experience Points 291 43.1Brogue Has Removed Experience Levels from the Game?!��292 43.2Variety and Continuity of Play State��293 43.3“I Am Better Than You, I Have a Higher Score!”��294 43.4More Reading��297 44 HyperRogue 299 44.1Lessons in Non-Euclidean Travel��299 44.2Your Passport Is Printed on a Mobius Strip��301 44.3There Are No Snake Enemies on the Hyperbolic Plane��301 44.4To Show Your Vacation Slides You’ll Have to Use a Poincaré Projector��302 44.5 Further Reading��305 45 Super-Rogue, Banished to the Deeper Dungeons 307 45.1History of the Early Games��307 45.2How Games Become Lost��309 45.3Please Contribute Today to the Save the Umber Hulk Foundation�� 310 45.4The Vrock’s in the Details�� 311 45.5Playing Super-Rogue Today�� 312 46 XRogue Has Not Yet Ceased to Be 313 46.1People Come in Different Flavors, but Dragons Are Not Picky Eaters�� 314 46.2The Stuff That Games Are Made Of�� 315 46.3Here Be Dragons . . . and a Selection of Five Other Monsters, Chosen Randomly��317 46.4In the Outer Region . . . We Control the Horticulture! We Control the Vertebrates!�� 318 46.5You’d Think a Stone Dungeon Would Be Sturdier . . . .�� 319 47 Larn, or, I Hocked the Car to Buy a Lance of Death 325 47.1The Taxonomy of Larn��325 47.2The Solution to All Your Monster Needs! Easy Installment Plan: One Installment, You Pay Now��326 47.3Larn Gameplay FAQ��327 47.3.1Where Do I Get It From?��327 47.3.2What Are the Basic Keys?��327 47.3.3I Started a Game and Now I’m in a Field with a Bunch of Numbers. What Does This Mean?��328 47.3.4How Do I Enter a Store/the Dungeon/the Bank/Whatever?��329 47.3.5The Messages at the Bottom of the Screen Seem Not to Make Any Sense, Is There Something Wrong With Them?��329 47.3.6Why Does My Inventory Consist of Five “a Magic Scroll”s and Four “a Magic Potion”s?��329 47.3.7I Went Up/Down a Circular Staircase, but When I Came Out the Other Side I Wasn’t at the Stairs from the Previous Level! How Come?��330 Contents xiii 47.3.8I’ve Found All These Rings and Things, but I Can’t Find Any Way to Put Them on! Help!��330 47.3.9What Are These Statues, Thrones, Mirrors and Altars Good for?��330 47.3.10What Is This Rectangular Region with the Door on One Edge?��330 47.3.11What Do I Do with the Books and Chests?��330 47.3.12How Do Spells Work?��330 47.3.13A Scroll of Gem Perfection? What Does That Do?�� 331 47.3.14I’ve Been Teleported, but Now the Dungeon Level Is Listed As “?,” What Gives?�� 331 47.3.15I’ve Made It to Level 10 of the Dungeon but I’m Being Attacked for Major Damage by Something I Can’t See!�� 331 47.3.16If I’m Just Going After It for Money to Buy the Lance of Death, Do I Really Have to Get the Eye of Larn?�� 331 47.3.17Any Other Tips?��332 47.3.18Hey, I Just Won, but on the Next Game I Didn’t Start with Any Equipment, and I Got a Message about Taxes! What the Heck?��332 47.4Acknowledgments��332 48 Hack’s Lost Brother 333 48.1Genealogy of the Dungeons of Doom��333 48.2Meet the Wizard of Yendor’s Lost Brother, Neil Yendor��334 48.3“This Corridor Seems Dusty. [More] Perhaps If You Cleaned More Often?”��335 48.4Plays Great—Less Taxing��336 48.5Sources��337 49 Interview: Keith Burgun on 100 Rogues 339 50 Interview: Josh Ge on Cogmind 345 50.1What Is Cogmind?��345 50.2Basic Stuff��347 50.3Project Progress (Circa 2016)��349 50.4Indie Business��350 50.5The Game World��351 50.6ASCII Graphics, in Its Own Way��353 50.7Supporting Varied Gameplay��354 50.8Advice for New Players��357 50.9Acknowledgments��359 Section VIII Roguelites and Related Games 51 Pixel Journeys: dnd for PLATO 363 51.1Introduction��363 51.2Playing the Game��364 51.3Beneath the Surface��366 51.4What Can We Learn from dnd5?��368 51.5Supplemental Information��369 51.6Sources��369 52 ToeJam & Earl, the Roguelike That’s Not an RPG 371 52.1That Evil Dentist Wouldn’t Be Laughing If I Had a Sword��371 52.2The Dual Gandhis of Funk��372 52.3But Is It a Roguelike? Point by Point��373 52.4The Triumph of Sir Nose�� 374 53 Interview: Digital Eel on Infinite Space xiv 375 Contents 54 Interview: Rodain Joubert on Desktop Dungeons 385 54.1Dungeon Crawl and Desktop Dungeons��386 54.2Platforms and Implementation��387 54.3Design Process, Commercial Viability and Promotion��388 54.4Difficulty and Humor��389 54.5Links Relating to the Developer��391 55 Spelunky 393 55.1Avoiding the Point��394 55.2Spooky + Spelunky = Spelooky?��396 55.3Somewhere, Izchak Miller Is Looking Down on Us, Smiling Maliciously��397 55.4Raising Real Estate Values in the Caves��397 55.5Spelunking Along, Singing a Song��398 55.6Source��399 56 Exploring the Oasis 401 56.1Basics��401 56.2Followers, Roads and Mines��402 56.3The Obelisk, the Oasis and the Nomads��404 56.4Why We’re Talking about This Game Here��406 57 The Rescue of Meta-Zelda 409 57.1The Legend of Zelda (Famicom/NES), Described��410 57.2The Game That Defined Nintendo Hard��410 57.3Now, about This Randomizer Thingy�� 411 57.4Random Zelda Is Hard, but Strangely Fair��413 58 Space Peeing Out There 415 58.1Hovering Above the Drain��415 58.2There’s a Stuckies Ahead and They Have Helium��417 58.3Looking Beyond to the Real Game��418 58.4Tips for Getting Started Out There��419 59 Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom 421 59.1Sources��423 60 DreamForge’s Dungeon Hack 425 60.1“It Is Strong Magic That Can Point to Maps!”��425 60.2The 2nd Edition D&D Class Reunion��428 60.3The Environmental Persecution Agency��429 60.4Dudgeons and Drag-Ons��430 Section VIV 61 The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design Design 435 62 Mapping the Infinite Cavern 439 62.1Angband��441 62.2NetHack��441 62.3ADOM�� 442 62.4Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer�� 442 63 Purposes for Randomization in Game Design 445 63.1Preserves Player Interest across Multiple Playthroughs�� 446 63.2Provides Resistance to Spoilers�� 446 Contents xv 63.3Challenges Player Deductive Skills��447 63.4Escapes the Limits of Conventional Narration��447 63.5Provides Complex Play through Combining of Basic Elements��448 64 Interface Aids and the Strategy Window 451 64.1That’s Funny, So I Assume, but What’s This All About?��453 64.2Against: Testing Knowledge and Thematic Danger��453 64.3In Favor: Avoiding Unsatisfying Play and Maintaining Strategic Focus�� 454 64.4Example: On the User Interface Helps of the Fire Emblem Series��454 64.5Back to Roguelikes: DCSS and Brogue’s Autoexplore Features��455 65 Modeling Motion on a Dungeon Grid 457 65.1The World Revolves Around Me��458 65.2Wait . . . Do You Hear Ticking?��459 65.3Special Cases��460 66 Rogue’s Item ID in Too Much Detail 461 66.1Item ID, Fantasy Literature and AD&D��461 66.2Item ID in Action��464 66.3What They Did, and Didn’t��466 67 Item Design: Potions and Scrolls 471 67.1The Justification for Treasure��471 67.2Disposable Magic: One-Use Items��472 67.3What Is the Functional Difference between Potions and Scrolls?��473 67.4Potions��473 67.4.1. . . of Healing (and Extra/Full Healing, Cure Light/Moderate/ Serious Wounds, and so on)��473 67.4.2. . . of Restore Ability�� 474 67.4.3. . . of Gain Strength (and Other Stats, and Ability)��475 67.4.4. . . of Gain Level��475 67.4.5. . . of Poison (and Sickness)��475 67.4.6. . . of (Something) Detection��475 67.4.7. . . of Confusion, Blindness, Paralysis��476 67.4.8. . . of Thirst Quenching (and Water, Holy Water and Unholy Water)��476 67.5Scrolls��476 67.5.1. . . of Identify��476 67.5.2. . . of Enchant Weapon/Armor��476 67.5.3. . . of Vorpalize Weapon��477 67.5.4. . . of Confuse Monster��477 67.5.5. . . of Scare Monster��477 67.5.6. . . of Genocide��477 67.5.7. . . of Maintain Armor��477 67.6Sources��478 68 Towards Building a Better Dungeon 479 68.1D&D Has Much More Interesting Traps than Roguelike Games��479 68.2All Monsters Are, in Tactical Terms, the Same Size��480 68.3Hidden Doors Are All Identical��481 68.4Stairs Not Matching X and Y Positions between Levels��481 68.5Item Identification Is Much Easier Than Classic D&D��481 68.6Lack of Multiplayer��482 xvi Contents Section VV Miscellaneous 69 A Coward Dies a Thousand Deaths, but My Computer, Several Thousand 487 69.1Rog-O-Matic: It Dies Over and Over So You Don’t Have To��487 69.2Did Three of Eight Just Tell Sauron Resistance Is Futile?��488 70 Running Atari ST Rogue in 2016 491 70.1Running Atari ST Rogue��492 70.1.1Step 1: Download and Unpack the Atari ST Emulator STeem SSE��492 70.1.2Step 2: Obtain the Atari ST Rogue Disk Image��492 70.1.3Step 3: Running the Game��492 70.2Getting Started with ST Rogue��493 70.3Reasons to Play Atari ST Rogue��494 70.4Acknowledgments��495 70.5Further Reading��495 71 Rogue and Its Inspiration 497 71.1Foundations of the Dungeon��497 71.2But It’s So Hard��498 71.3The Subterranean Arms Race: MAD (Mutually Assured Dragons)��498 72 The Rights to Rogue 501 72.1Other Facts of Possible Interest��502 72.2Sources��503 73 Some Recent Information 505 Index507 Contents xvii Notes on the Text These chapters were written over a long period, with some sizable gaps mixed in. They cover a wide array of aspects of roguelike gaming, sometimes talking to experts, sometimes to novices and sometimes to developers. I’ve tried to arrange the pieces here in an order so that one can get started reading from the beginning, but this isn’t really a book intended to be read start to finish. Taking my lead from Martin Gardner and his legendary Mathematical Games column from Scientific American magazine, I went over subjects more-or-less randomly, and so should you read the material here you think you’ll find more interesting. There are hundreds of pages, so there should be something here, somewhere! Once you’re more conversant with the genre and have played a few (many of the games named here are open source, and most are either free or of very low cost), come back and maybe you’ll be more interested in the obscurer topics. (On Martin Garner and Mathematical Games: seriously, you should look that up, or seek out the huge compilation The Colossal Book of Mathematics. It is terrific.) When the writing of these pieces began, the usage of he and him as the default pronouns in English was still prevalent. I have not engaged in much wholesale changing of them for this edition, but if they were written today, I would use they and them instead. Languages are supposed to change over time, and it is right that they be adjusted to reflect current norms. xix About the Author John Harris has been bumping around the internet for over 20 years. In addition to writing the columns @Play and Pixel Journeys for GameSetWatch and developer interviews for Gamasutra, he’s spoken at Roguelike Celebration. John Harris has a MA in English Literature from Georgia Southern University. xxi 1 An Introduction to Some Rogues August 2006 Before we kick off this collection of essays on the niche-but-awesome genre of roguelike games, it should help to define what is meant by that term. Roguelikes are dungeon-exploration computer games, patterned after their classic namesake Rogue and set in a randomly generated world. They are known for their tremendous difficulty, unpredictability, permanent character death and the large number of methods they use to inflict that death. They were most popular in college computer labs in the ’80s, and while they didn’t achieve widespread success at the time, the genre nevertheless persists, and prospers to this day, and its dedicated cadre of devotees will argue night and day that these are the greatest computer games ever made. Just in case it isn’t obvious by now: I am one of them. 1.1 “Is That a Computer Game or Bad ASCII Art?” From one perspective, the roguelikes are throwbacks. Here is a class of games, not really mainstream but not obscure either, that has largely resisted modernization. While it might be difficult for someone looking at Colossal Cave to connect it with being of the same kind as, say, Telltale’s A Wolf Among Us games, your major roguelikes, by and large, look similar to how they always have. Although all of the major roguelike games (excepting perhaps the newest one, Brogue) have bitmapped graphic modes now, they also retain their classic ASCII modes, and many other computer roguelikes use an ordinary text console window as their sole display. NetHack has inspired a number of attempts to give it fairly modern graphics (including one, Vulture, that is somehow sold on Steam), yet possibly the most played form of the game even now, 20 years after it came into being, is on public telnet servers with hundreds of players, not much different in appearance from Rogue itself back upon its release in 1980. But while there is an air of the Neanderthal surrounding these games, they’ve survived for so long because, even after all that time, they’re still so startlingly modern. Since Rogue was created, the grand parade of computer games is supposed to have advanced in every respect. Their graphics now approach the point where they are indistinguishable from reality. So it is damning indeed that many of them are not more interesting to play than an old terminal game that has barely changed in 36 years. 1 Figure 1.1 Rogue Clone IV, win32 version. 1.2 “But It Helped Me Last Time!” Perhaps the biggest factor for roguelike longevity is that they are randomly created each game. Every play, the dungeon levels are generated anew, so the player must again explore the mazes in order to make progress. But these days this isn’t as innovative as it once was, as a good number of other games have featured random dungeons since then. Many of them were directly inspired by Rogue or one of its descendants. Diablo, one of the biggest software success stories to date, remains quite popular. And yet in almost all cases, those games reveal only a glimmer of understanding of what makes Rogue so interesting. Instead of just random dungeons, another defining feature of many roguelikes is that the items generated during the game are also randomly selected, and their appearance is scrambled each game. That is to say, when you find an unknown potion lying on the floor of the dungeon, you don’t know at first what it will do when you drink it. One game it might heal you, the next it may rob your character of sight making you easy prey for wandering monsters. That by itself isn’t so interesting, but what is is that the appearance of the various items in the game is consistent within that character’s life, so all orange potions will be the same type, and the same goes for all cloudy ones, milky ones and even plaid ones. The game’s interface recognizes this too, so that if you drink a blue-green potion and get healed, all blue-green potions will be automatically renamed “potions of healing.” Some of these items are less obvious in their effects (What the hell is “makes you feel warm all over” supposed to mean?), so for them the game will ask the player what he thinks the item is and will then use that name until the player can find a better one. Discovering items through experimentation, in this way, is an important process in many roguelikes, and its lack is what prevents Diablo, for all its admirable traits, from being as good. 1.3 Part Hack and Slash, Part Scientific Method All the potions and scrolls in Rogue, and most of its descendants, work that way. The player drinks or reads the item, it is used up, and its effect upon the world is described as well as the player’s character can see. But there is usually one type of item, the Scroll of Identify, that will infallibly name an object. Since some items are so subtle in their workings that the player is unlikely to ever figure out their use through trial and error, Identify scrolls are valuable treasures. But the player can only ID things he’s carrying at the time the scroll 2 1. An Introduction to Some Rogues is read, and he can only pick which item is to be ID’d, not pick the effect. If you’re dying to discover which potion is extra healing, only chance can bring that knowledge to you. There are other types of random items in Rogue too, which are even more difficult to figure out. Rings have subtle effects that are very challenging to discover through observation, and wands are dangerous to play around with. Even in a winning game it is unlikely that the player will see all the items that can be generated, let alone figure out what they all do. While there are plenty of other things to like about Rogue and its descendants, in the end it is this need to discover the game world anew every time that makes them fascinating. In a roguelike, the monsters are just one facet of a dangerous game world ready to do you in on a moment’s notice, and sometimes the beasties are less likely to end a game than the player’s stuff itself. In the coming pages we’ll be investigating many of the most interesting aspects of this venerable and challenging genre. We’ll take a look at the most popular games, and many lesser-known ones too. We’ll do that and much more, so let’s get started! I’ll be your tour guide: the guy waiting by the downstairs, whistling for his dog. Figure 1.2 1.3 Part Hack and Slash, Part Scientific Method 3

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