Nostalgic Vacation: 1980 - Rogue

On 09/03/2014 at 02:51 PM by KnightDriver

1980 was the true dawn of the arcades. In addition to the four previously mentioned: Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian, and Lunar Lander, we now add Pac-Man, Missile Command, Tempest, Battlezone, Berzerk, Defender and Centipede. These 11 games, plus maybe Rally-X for a neat dozen, make the core of the arcade experience in the 80's to me. More excellent games would come, especially the Nintendo ones, but these 12 are how I remember the arcades at the beginning. The games that started it all.

At home the gaming landscape was rich with choices as well. Atari 2600 added: Golf, Space Invaders, Boxing, Fishing Derby and Skiing, just to name the ones I liked; and Mattel's Intellivision came out with: Horse Racing, all the sports games with their official licenses, and my personal favorite 2-player strategy game, Sea Battle. I didn't own an Intellivision but my neighbor and best friend did, so I got to play all their games. I played my first PC game, Zork, on my Aunt's pricey IBM PC (the 16k ram IBM PC was around $1500 back then which would be about $4000 today).

All these were a wealth of riches to choose from but a PC game was released that year that I never played and has become a descriptive word used in gaming even today. I just heard it yet again this week on Major Nelson's podcast about PAX 2014 refering to Capybara's new game Below. That game is Rogue.

rogue

I played the Rogue Clone version on a browser at Hexatron. It's the character-based version used on ACSII terminals and it's slightly easier than original Rogue. There's a DOS version that uses a sprite-based look, but the browser version for that wasn't available on coredumpcentral (http://coredumpcentral.org/ ), possibly because Rogue is now available on iOS for phones (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rogue/id298113808?mt=8 ).There is also a ZX Spectrum version there, but I didn't try that.

The character-based Rogue Clone was a little tricky to figure out, but all the instructions are below the screen area. Some essentials are: you hit the space bar to advance whenever the screen says "more" (that was a little weird), and you can get the list of commands by typing "?" and your inventory by typing "i". Once you have all that, it's easy. . . Or so I thought.

Rogue is surprisingly fun despite it's rudimentry presentation. You move around the dungeons and look for items and fight monsters. I discovered how to shoot arrows by "throwing" them. I'm not sure if you have to equip the bow first. I tried it but you can "throw" an arrow without doing that. I'm not sure if it does more damage when you have your bow equiped though - there's no indication of hit points with monsters. To fight you just move towards the monster and have a weapon equipped. You can speed up the process by using "f" then the direction (for fighting until low on health), or "F" then the direction (to fight until something dies).

Like other RPGs, you level up and gain more hit points and strength. You have to equip weapons and armor to use them, and potions and scrolls are a mystery until you identify them. I usually just drank or read them to find out. Of course then you've used them. Rogue Clone remembers the Potion/Spell names once you use them unlike original Rogue, a very helpful feature.

The object is to go down into the dungeon screen by screen until you find the Amulet of Yendor (Yendor is Rodney - just like Wizardry who's final boss Werdna is Andrew) and then return to the surface. I didn't get past level two. I wonder how to beat some of these monsters? Once you enter a room with one, a strong one, it will pursue you and you really can't outrun it.

Rogue is a lot of fun, but tough. You run out of health, you die, and go to the graveyard screen, which is also a high score screen, then you have to start all over again. I was amazed to see people on the high score screen who had beaten the game and had hundreds of thousands of gold. The more I think about this game, the more I think of the Souls games. It's like Demon's Souls without graphics.

Alex-C25

09/03/2014 at 04:56 PM

Now you know why games of this kind are called Rogue-Like. I definitly want to try it one of this days.

Super Step Contributing Writer

09/04/2014 at 12:17 AM

Yeah, I knew Rogue was a game that created a genre, kind of like how Metroid and Symphony of the Night-style Castlevania games helped create the "Metroidvania" genre, but I never knew what Rogue looked like.

KnightDriver

09/04/2014 at 03:02 AM

This is the IBM PC version that's sprite-based.

09/04/2014 at 03:04 AM

You've basically played it if you've played any roguelikes. Rogue really is like the guts of any RPG really. Some just let you live longer.

09/04/2014 at 03:25 AM

Yeah, I saw a video of it on Youtube, vaguely reminded me of when as kids we'd make LOGO art using the "turtle" (on-screen arrow) on the school's computers in my mom's class. Vaguely. Honestly, it reminds me more of the start-up screens to those old machines more than anything.

And I've always taken Rogue-like to mean a game that is intentionally too difficult for most gamers to get into. But I do have a hard time with RPGs, so I'll take your word for it on that definition. lol I have an ok time with Pokemon and Paper Mario games, but something more traditional like Golden Sun is not a game I tend to get very far in.

09/04/2014 at 04:13 PM

I only got to level two before I'd had enough. I don't like repeating levels and having to deal with constant failure. It's why I don't play many platform games either.

09/04/2014 at 05:20 PM

I love platforming games, but mainstream ones mostly. I rarely repeat a level all that many times in a platformer unless it's a later level. I wonder how much of Super Meat Boy I'll actually be able to stomach. But I grew up on Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Street Fighter II: Turbo, Star Fox 64, and other games that rewarded good hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes. I still prefer action and platforming games to most other genres.

Meanwhile, while adult me is able to keep up to speed at a somewhat reasonable level in a graduate level stats course, younger me had huge math anxiety and couldn't stand RPGs for their boring wait-your-turn fighting systems or their focus on character statistsics. I love having numerical measures for my characters' abilities now, mostly because I like seeing the progress I've made represented in an obvious and visual way, but I still lean away from turn-based battles and I hate random encounters with a fiery passion.

09/05/2014 at 02:38 AM

I basically feel like when everyone was playing Super Mario Bros., I was playing shooters and brawlers. I love action games, just don't like platform games much, although, I try and try, because games like Rayman Origins blows me away with its graphics, and I've always loved DKC. Of course, I have SMB on both Wii VC and 3DS VC and keep trying to "get it". It's clearly an amazing game. I admire its design excellence, I just get really frustrated with it.

09/04/2014 at 05:47 PM

Though the concept it's similar to some (like what i've seen on Dwarf Fortress), I just want to say that not all the Rogue-likes are like, well, Rogue. Do you know Risk of Rain?

09/05/2014 at 02:33 AM

Risk of Rain is definitely rogue-like but not a turn-based game at all. High octane action all the way. Looks cool.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

09/03/2014 at 10:13 PM

i remember playing most of these games as ports on the atari my family had. the first game I really remember is Defender. That game still frightens me.

09/04/2014 at 03:09 AM

I just read Rogue was ported to the Atari computers. I used to poo poo those systems but I kinda wish I had one to fool with now.

Defender always frustrated me with it's controls. I hate the way the screen shifts when you switch directions.

09/04/2014 at 03:55 AM

i remember watching my sibling playing it more than playing it myself.

NSonic79

09/05/2014 at 12:55 PM

Wow. Just wow. and I thought we console gamers had to have a lot of imagination when it came to what we saw on the screens when we played our respective consoles. I never knew this game was around, even in that time. What other type of games fell thru the cracks back then or were forgotten when those arcade heavy hitters were around?

09/05/2014 at 02:09 PM

PC's were just becoming affordable and there were games I never knew about too. I played Zork and Wizardry but there were a lot more like the Ultima series on systems like the Apple II, Commodore Vic20 and C64, and, if you were in Europe, the ZX Spectrum. I noticed games appeared in greater numbers on the Apple II over the IBM PC in the early days. I wonder why?

PixlBit