Rogue - The Original Roguelike

[@salainen6850]

It's not Roguelike! It's the Rogue itself!

[@judythompson5253]

exactly. I would kill to get to this game again. I came so close to winning....

[@caipi8429]

@@judythompson5253 I won, that was hard..

[@bearman_1826]

@@jotsa Which one is your favorite?

[@bearman_1826]

@@jotsa Sure! As far as straight text adventures go, Zork is always nice. Also the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy of you're a masochist. XD As far as traditional Roguelikes go, Rogue is simple enough to start with if you feel intimidated by the genre. It's hard as balls, but you can more or less figure the controls out. If you play that and like it, a good step up from that would be Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. It's harder, more complicated, and very deep, but still quite playable even if you don't have severe autism. Powder is a good one as well. Both are free and easily obtainable. After that, definitely play NetHack. It's quite complicated, and very difficult, but it is _the_ roguelike. So play it for fun, or as a piece of important history. Either way, it's quite good. Getting into the ludicrously complicated now. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is amazing. And I've heard Caves of Qud is too, but I haven't played it yet. Both will permanently scar your brain. Finally, if you feel like a god, if unintuitive controls are intuitive to you, if no level of depth and complexity is satisfying unless the game is basically simulating the real world, play Dwarf Fortress. Both in fortress mode and adventure mode. Both are fun. If you only want to play one, play Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup. It's my favorite so far.

[@bearman_1826]

@@jotsa np

[@mamounarakza5951]

wow , i just found out about this game and my mind is blown, like this game is so legendary that a whole genre was named after it

[@HuManl0g]

This guy after finding out metroidvania or soulslike

[@CommonPainW]

@@HuManl0g yeah but this is true og genre

[@schmietwechdeschiet4340]

its not a genre! people are just to dumb and lszy to describe a game. Like how the fuck you see returnal and this game and say, yea its the same game

[@facepillownap]

Just picked up "Dead Cells" and heard the term 'roguelike' being tossed around a lot. Wanted to see OG Rogue gameplay and boom Scott Manley has the perfect video. Been a fan for a long time, thanks for the great stuff Scott.

[@Lina-ws3by]

Deadcells is rogue-lite, the distinction is no progression and tbs for rogue'like'

[@casedistorted]

NetHack is a good game that is similar to Rogue but a little bit more modern in getting it to run. Or Dungeons of Dredmor for a graphical interface like scott said.

[@paipai762]

If anyone want to know the history of roguelikes then listen to the audiobook "Dungeon Hack: How NetHack, Angband, and Other Roguelikes Changed the course of Video Games" ( yes that is a long title) Its actually very intresting how regular students made games while getting F's in school xD

[@human.earthling]

Yes, good book, I heard it in audiobook format.

[@paipai762]

Me too with audible :)

[@mikeyoung9810]

good book. i was just rereading it last night (well re-listening on audible). Great book.

[@5Andysalive]

lol funny how you go straight to the audio book. As if reading a book isn't even worth considering.

[@InstazomeASMR]

does it mention PLATO RPGs?

[@scottmanley]

Yes, but the original used 40k of 36bit words, quite a bit bigger, it was shrunk down to fit on micros.

[@fragglet]

Great video! One point you missed was that games like Rogue (and the curses library) were only possible because people were now using video terminals ("glass teletypes") instead of printout terminals (keyboard and line printer): with that old technology, games like Adventure were all that was possible.

[@jimmccusker3155]

I think the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A started it all. I remember writing simple screen drivers (mostly config files) for early word processors in order to handle some of the various differences. This was ultimately resolved in future OS's.

[@BitwiseMobile]

There were terminals. Even if you are talking circa 1960 and the original PDP-11 Spacewars from 20 years prior that was played on a cathode ray tube as well. Spacewar was created by Steve Russell, Martin Graetz, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and other MIT gods from the golden era of computing. It was one of the first computer games ever. It predates Adventure by at least a decade. Prior to that computers were giant time share behemoths that you had to schedule time to use. While the MIT gods were busy creating concepts that we take for granted today they didn't work on any games at that time. Just making the computer do what you wanted to was enough entertainment for these guys (and I would agree). While Colossal Cave Adventure was originally a teletype based game, it wasn't because there weren't any terminals available.

[@scottmanley]

Get Dungeons of Dredmor if you want a more modern experience in the same vein

[@dane2080]

I know this was 9 years ago, but loved your vid. Informative, and a nice little preview. Enjoyed it very much, thank you. I've been playin games since atari and commadore 64 days with the 5x5 floppy drives. I thought loderunner and pong were old games! Well done.

[@whythisname]

Thanks for making a video on this Scott, now I finally know what they mean when they talk about "rogue like gameplay" :)

[@Chickenkeeper]

Maybe the dungeon is inside a flying safe?

[@youcantata]

You can fly safe inside of dungeon with ring of levitation. But beware of cursed one.

[@fossil98]

Seconding Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup! Truly a standout game for beginners. Design goals: Major * challenging and random gameplay, with skill making a real difference * meaningful decisions (no no-brainers) * avoidance of grinding (no scumming) * gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie support Minor * clarity (playability without need for spoilers) * internal consistency * replayability (using branches, species, playing styles and gods) * proper use of out of depth monsters

[@michaelbauers8800]

Ah kids. They have no idea we played these games at 1200 baud, and you watched the screen redraw. I played countless games of this in college in the 1980s. I did graduate with a degree in comp sci. though, in spite of wasting a lot of time on rogue and other games. Someone had modified one version at the college, so professor names replaced monster names. They had changed one name to Tareski, after an EE professor. I was friends with his daughter, which made it weird to kill it.

[@jefferywestbrook]

I remember the 1980 computer lab at college at 2AM filled with kids playing Rogue on VT100s running on a DEC PDP11.

[@BitwiseMobile]

This game and Hack! were both instrumental in me seeking a career in programming. At the time I wasn't thinking of a career, I just wanted to figure out how it was done, and so began a trip down a rabbit hole that hasn't ceased in 40 years since my 13 year old eyes first peeked at that ASCII on the screen.

[@Sinjinator]

Same here, and it also got me into MUDs/MUCKs/MUSHs, and programming within those text based worlds (for social enhancements, of course).

[@GateCrasherVI]

This was one of the first games I remember seeing my older cousins playing. Probably one of the first games that I aspired to play. I remember struggling to wrap my mind around zork, then civilization and chuck yeager air combat. I highly suggest the later two. I remember rogue being insanely difficult for a 9 year old me, inevitably giving up for sid meiers civ

[@fergusof]

OMG! Zork! Get out the pencil and paper. So enthralling to have to figure out the maps. I still have the original box. Floppy anyone?

[@casedistorted]

It's crazy to think basically everything that defines these games was made long before I was born in 1986. I remember thinking Diablo was so original for it's time, or playing NetHack and assuming it was the first game of it's kind, but nope. There was Rogue before all of them.

[@flashbacks7892]

As well as games like: Ultima (1981) & Wizardry (1981). Look up How wizardry influenced your favorite games.

[@flashbacks7892]

Also look up for the 8-bit NES game called The Immortal by Will Harvey and it was later ported to other systems.

[@HebaruSan]

I ascended a barbarian in Nethack, I think in 1997 or so. I laid my own cockatrice eggs while polymorphed and sex-changed so I could throw them to stone the higher demons. After that experience, I pretty much just laugh whenever a new game claims to be a "roguelike". No way anyone's gotten near that level of depth, except maybe Tarn Adams' popular masterpiece.

[@aztro.99]

most people cant appreciate this low graphics high gameplay masterpiece

[@ryleighs9575]

I've finally discovered rogue-likes, lead to them by Dwarf Fortress (the adventure mode being the most open-ended rogue-like around), and NetHack is definitely my favourite pure rogue-like so far. Last night I started a rogue class character, got as far as the Dlvl:3, found "a blessed +1 runed dagger named Sting" (is that the reference I think it is?), but subsequently got bit by a wererat, and I'm guessing since it was a full moon, proceeded to change immediately into a wererat myself, and got killed by something soon after (you start with very low max health when you transform). I have a feeling that wouldn't have happened in Rogue lol; credit where credit is do for the origins of the genre, but NetHack took it where it needed to go.

[@ralgha]

Larn (created in 1986) was one of the first rogue-likes ported to DOS and it had a great balance to it with just the right level of complexity. Still fun to play 27 years later and has been ported to Windows and other platforms.

[@Sinjinator]

Yes that one was my favorite! I can’t believe I actually rented a computer back in ‘88 so I could play that and others (Empire) for one week of intense gaming. I always thought it was unique in that you could enter the regular dungeon or slide down a volcanic shaft and meet hordes really high powered monsters. And of course I had to use the settings file to rename some of the weakest monsters! 😂

[@ralgha]

@@Sinjinator That's awesome! I remember downloading it at 1200bps with XMODEM. Haha. Nowadays there's an incredible browser-based version.

[@AstroNerdBoy]

Wow. I never played the 1980 version. I played the PC versions that started coming out in 82 or 84. I then bought the Epyx version in '87. And yes, leather armor is the BEST armor since it couldn't be weakened (at least in the later versions of Rogue). I don't think I ever found a Scroll of Protect Armor in all the decades I played the game. Anyway, thanks for the share.

[@pendleyparagons]

I may be wrong but I thought the reason its randomly generated was because of storage limitations not to specifically be for the devs to be able to play, it was described as being more easy for it to randomly generate levels than to store every level made by hand

[@scottmanley]

Recorded on the road in a hotel room.

[@cosmicfails2053]

There's a game, Caves of QoD that honestly feel like if someone took rogue and made it an adventure RPG and then did coke and meth Check it out!

[@fattony75]

It just got released on steam for $3 - also your voice is like warm butter and I am going to fall asleep to it

[@literallyalois2966]

Man I need more singleplayer, single playable character, rpg roguelike games.

[@Mimwing]

Aww, and I thought it was some extremely clever editing meant to inspire images of dark, cavernous dungeons.

[@Stijn081]

I'm 15 years old and I feel like I missed the beautiful time of gaming. I am proud I used floppies though :)

[@youreallinsane]

Honestly, you aren't missing much. Games today are better, if you stick with indie inspired by retro games.

[@youcantata]

My dear memory of getting the Amulet of Yonder for the first time in my life.

[@scottmanley]

Dungeons of Dredmor

[@spacedrake1]

People who aren't sure about getting into rogue-likes because it seems too inaccessible should try ToME (Tales of Maj-Eyal). It's very simple to understand at first, but it has a lot of the depth associated with rogue-likes, along with a chat system so you can talk to other players playing the game at the time if you have a question, etc. I highly recommend it!

[@deepfakestudio7776]

KZbin please recommand this to everyone in 2021!!!!!

[@scottmanley]

With a ring of levitation (or maybe that's only in nethack)

[@casedistorted]

This video is from such an old era of KZbin (like the game Rogue) that your youtube replies are singularly alone instead of actual replies to comments. Man, I remember those days of YT.. back when we had Annotations on videos and some videos were based entirely around that because some folks didn't even have a microphone.

[@MarianoLu]

Just learned about Rogue with Destin’s video (Smart every day). So a YT search to see the original and first of the list is a 10 years old Scott video showing it… looks like birds of a feather do flock together 😂

[@NearNothing]

This was my favorite game growing up, only ever beat it once in all the years. Q for quaff.

[@phantaphil]

I never beat it! Two times i managed to face the wizard of Yendor, but one time i ran into a N (by accident!) and she stole my ring of fire protection - Burned to a crisp. Oh i loved this game! Edit: Oh wait. I played 'Hack', very similar to rogue, on my Atari ST ...

[@Hopu88]

I just want to thank you about your videos, i realy enjoy watching your videos and listening your commentary. Your voice is so relaxing, your wife/daughters are so lucky. :)

[@EightyFourThousands84000s]

I love Roguelike/roguelites! My fav genre of games :>

[@Mercur1c]

ADOM is also a pretty good roguelike to start of with, and it's free.

[@nickrowan]

oh my this brings back memories... Thanks for doing this.

[@DeftCrowMk3]

Nethack's charm lies in finding unique item/monster/environmental interactions that will help the player overcome obstacles the game keeps throwing in. Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup focuses more on tactical combat and strategic decisions, forcing the player to keep moving by deliberately making resources scarce. (Having a guaranteed *positive* encounter with a succubus while wearing a Ring of Adornment vs. Undead slime split out of the wounded Royal Jelly en masse, giving no experience for kills.)

[@RyushoYosei]

Well the game is at least six years older then me if it was made in 1980, since I was born in 1986, but still, Awesome to see that you decided to show this!

[@TinfoilChef]

actually game saves in Rogue were easy to do. I had a batch file that would make a copy of the game save when I quit so that I could reload the world after a death. All I needed to do was save/quit at least once per level and then restart.

[@igichan]

It's actually pretty ingenious how they made a whole game using ascii graphics, reminds me of the little games people would put on TI graphing calculators

[@lordofudead]

There are some other great rogues out there as well, Such as the underrated flash game Red Rogue, Dungeon Crawl: Soup Stone and the ever growing in popularity, Rogue Legacy. all fantastic games

[@MalletFace9898]

Dwarf Fortress will get new updates for what could possibly be a few decades. I like that about the game, and it can change things up at times for Urist McGenericdwarf.

[@ichigen511]

I played Dungeon! on Commodore PET in 1979. It was almost the same game but more simpler. It did, if I remember correctly, have random dungeon generation. I feel like Rogue is a Dungeon-like, and Rogue-likes are Dungeon-like-likes. And Rogue-like-likes are Dungeon-like-like-likes. You're welcome.

[@matthewlasalvia7026]

Anyone else want a remake of this game? I mean still top down but they add some animations, some background design, enemy design, music, just something to make this game look modern.

[@chasesommer]

I'm researching this to possibly make a blockchain version of it ;)

[@mikeyoung9810]

My first online game was diablo 1 in 1996 and I had no idea rogue existed until much later when someone said it was a rogue-like.

[@jasoncraig136]

Thanks for the vid, I remember playing this several decades ago.

[@Eyerleth]

Oh, geez, I played that a lot as a kid.

[@oivatank]

We need more simple games like this. I would also totally back the creation of a remastered Rogue. Imagine this, but cleaner and with updated graphics (and you can choose to switch to the classic look).

[@huldu]

You might want to throw an eyeball at Adom(ancient domains of mystery). It's quite good.

[@oivatank]

huldu ‘preciate the heads up!

[@danikalero6357]

As a new rogue-like aficionado I love this and on an unrelated note, where is your accent from? Because it's very clear and just lovely

[@lucywucyyy]

sent this to my fren who claims to like rogue likes but didnt seem to know what one was, he called dark souls a rogue like

[@TinfoilChef]

Nope, just being creative. making a gamesave batchfile added considerably to the fun I had with Rogue. Just as having the mechjeb flight computer adds to KSP (and no, I never let it autopilot)

[@obiwanbenobi4943]

This version is not the original (there were a number of versions released). There weren't color terminals back then and some of the screen drawing is different. The source code is available on-line in several places. Also for fun there is another game called Rog-O-Matic which will play rogue. I've wasted many hours (back in the 80s and more recently) messing around with these games and going through the C source code.

[@fergusof]

Scott! Come back, Scott! Loved the commentary! Love those games, especially Nethack. Had to use the save cheat to actually finish it. Does that make me a bad man?

[@scottmanley]

No.

[@GateCrasherVI]

I vaguely remember Kings Quest. Can't remember Space Quest. Definitely good times.

[@CommandLineVulpine]

Cataclysm DDA and Dwarf Fortress are new rougelikes that still get updates and such

[@peasedustin]

looked up a Rogue walkthrough, saw it was from Scott Manley and said “hot damn!”

[@elimik31]

Dwarf Fortress is still one of my favorite games. Well, to be honest, at least it's main (fortress) mode is not a roguelike. But there are other classic roguelikes that I still enjoy. Brogue, ADOM, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Doom RL...

[@PainMonkey]

It's kind of amazing that someone basically programmed a game that worked as sophisticated as something like Fatal Labyrinth, but in 1980 on a file probably barely bigger than this post, that could convincingly portray ampersands and asterisks as ice monster battles. It deserves to have a genre named after it. What else has that distinction? Metroidvania? Smash Fighter?

[@LaukkuPaukku]

Adventure (aka ADVENT or Colossal Cave Adventure), from 1976

[@Jebbis]

I played Chuck Yeager on my Tandy 3000. And Space Quest, oh how I loved those games.

[@RCharnetsky]

Exactly what I was looking for.

[@SinPistones]

Holy crap... I was 3 years old when this game was made? No wonder I've never played it. (And I think I should play it sometime!)

[@charlesquinton9127]

This reminds me of the dungeon crawler Stone Soup. I would still much rather play Ror2 or ETG than either of those games this but it's nice to see a piece of gaming history.

[@ScaldingVats]

Seconding this! Would love to see a lets play of Dwarf Fortress from Scott.

[@schmietwechdeschiet4340]

99% of people using the term "roguelike" dont know rogue, change my mind!

[@fordprefect80]

Agree. The term too often gets used to describe games that aren't roguelikes.

[@RichardLangis]

Nethack has quests, wands, wishes, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

[@BDR198524]

Dungeon Crawl is definitely a great modern shade of red.

[@AeroQC]

You go Scott! Plunder the dungeons of Eryeforghet! :P

[@robertpaton9716]

I used to play this game at work on a DEC mainframe (when I should have been working )

[@TzuCraft]

SoTS The Pit is a pretty new, and very accessible roguelike imo. And for like $5 you can't beat it really.

[@dookep.3459]

무슨 라이크에 근본인 로그/로그라이크처럼 거의 그래픽이랄게 없이 기초적인 게임구조에서 비롯된 것이 아니라, 시대적으로 그래픽(모션, 비주얼)과 몬스터 각각에 공격패턴같은 디테일이 많이 붙어있는 어찌보면 다른 ○○라이크 장르에 비해 훨씬 완성형 작품에서 파생된 장르가 소울라이크다보니 어느정도는 비슷한 맛이 나는거야 표방하는 장르의 특성상 좀 강할수있다고 생각함. 물론 p의거짓은 장르적 유사성을 따지기에는 과한 면도 있긴하지만, 뭐....표절과 유사성, 혹은 오마주에 경계에 대한 걸 따지는건 언제나 갑론을박이 오가는 문제니 딱잘라 판단하기가 나로써는 쉽지않지만 개인적으로 국내 게임사에서 이런 도전적인 게임 개발을 시도하는건 너무 좋게받아들여지고 결과물 자체도 오히려 본가 작품과 비교될 정도에 완성도를 낼수있는 개발력을 콘솔게임 개발에 불모지수준인 국내게임사에서 발휘했다는것부터 높게 평가받을만하다고 생각함. 물론 객관적인 세계시장에서 받는 평가는 당연히 사심이 끼어있는 내 개인의 만족도보다 덜하겠지만....

[@TinfoilChef]

It's been a long time but I'm pretty sure that future levels were always different, generated at random the first time you enter them.

[@yank3656]

thanks for sharing Scott Manley

[@Ragegamer2]

Another rogue-like that I remember playing is called Dragon Crystal for the Game Gear.

[@Ostsol]

I'm another who prefers Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It is, however, my nemesis. Without save-scumming I've only rarely made it down past level 10.

[@youreallinsane]

Thanks for that in-depth history

[@RandomTomatoSoup]

Surely The Original Roguelike would be the next game in a similar vein to Rogue? Tut tut, Manley man. Also I now think all us Scott Manley fans should call ourselves Manley Men.

[@voodoo6358]

I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOREVER.

[@JonasPolsky]

as I'm listening to the descriptions of scroll identification and randomized levels, I'm realizing that Toejam and Earl was a roguelike, lmao

[@mariamdream]

I used to LOVE this game..it’s so nice to see it again ❤️

[@Teabone3]

same

[@CommandLineVulpine]

Scott your rouglike videos are giving me so much hope You really should start a Let's Play of Dwarf Fortress, or Cataclysm: DDA

[@ajorioles944]

1080p Recording on Rogue, worth it.

[@cenaalan5825]

Wow, that's obviously some ultra future game, I'm amazed by high level of abstraction, nothing superfluous, when it would be released?

[@TinfoilChef]

oh yeah, it's not *quite* the same mechanic used in Minecraft. In Rogue there was no respawning, in Minecraft there is (and I'm not really interested in hardcore mode. It's a cool diversion once in a great while but I really like having a persistent world that I've been playing since Beta 1.3_01

[@chesterules]

Hate to bump comments above 255 (a common limit found in 80s games, and still the max armor a monster can have in Angband) , but I wanted to link to the latest version of Angband since it's the only Roguelike I've been able to become addicted to. It recently has improved the ID game and traps situation nicely in its latest version: rephial.org/ While there are tile sets for more modern visuals, the visual economy of the oldschool asci graphics are far superior in my opinion. I'd recommend starting as a Half Troll High-Elf or Half Troll Warrior. And adjust Strength and Dexterity when starting out for maximum blows with melee weapon (it's either 12 STR and 8 DEX or 8 STR and 12 DEX)

[@ArtForSwans]

The only modern rogue like I can think of that even slightly resembles this is Binding of Isaac, but I'm pretty sure there's another one that actually behaves just like the original, but it's name eludes me.

[@segufix]

SotS:ThePit and DoomRL (both very very similar games) also follow the formula very nicely.

[@brucefelger4015]

this was the first game i ever hacked. it was fun.

[@nintenduh]

Hehe. Came upon this looking for "Everspace roguelike elements". Fly safe! :D

[@Midget5019]

You would think so but it doesn't seem to be the case :/. People consider it to be a roguelike since your characters do actually die. You do play a new character every time even if it has an upgrade system that isn't lost on death. Theres also the fact that every players castle will be different. It's highly unlikely that two player's castles will be the same.

[@elugaporp_2]

we came from this to hades, isaac, and gungeon damn

[@pricemac]

What sets rogue apart is it's different every time. And Perma-Death. Which "Rogue"-Legacy does not have, that alone should be enough to disqualify it.

[@malomalovids]

I'm not a sociopath, "I'm more of a puckish rouge." Quote from the "Independence Day" trailer for Saints Row 4.

[@soralink411]

You have a glorious voice

[@andrewtheanimenerd]

Hail the Random Number God. He will guide us to a death that doesn't suck.

[@adammclaughlin845]

I had literally no idea that when you go into a dungeon, the threats include emus and kestrels.

[@seniorpz1969]

It was one of my favs.

[@blockchaaain]

I've played Zork many times, never to completion. I definitely need to download this sometime. Dunno why I haven't already.

[@grimace9670]

I’ve finally found the rouge all those games are like