Since 1980, in-the-know computer gamers have been enthralled by the unpredictable, random, and incredibly deep gameplay of Rogue and those games inspired by it, known to fans as "roguelikes." For decades, this venerable genre was off the radar of most players and developers for a variety of reasons: deceptively simple graphics (often just text characters), high difficulty, and their demand that a player brings more of themselves to the game than your typical AAA title asks. This book covers many of the most prominent titles and explains in great detail what makes them interesting, the ways to get started playing them, the history of the genre, and more. It includes interviews, playthroughs, and hundreds of screenshots. It is a labor of love: if even a fraction of the author’s enthusiasm for these games gets through these pages to you, then you will enjoy it a great deal.
Key Features:
- Playing tips and strategy for newcomers to the genre
- Core roguelikes Rogue, Angband, NetHack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, ADOM, and Brogue
- The "lost roguelikes" Super Rogue and XRogue, and the early RPG dnd for PLATO systems
- The Japanese console roguelikes Taloon’s Mystery Dungeon and Shiren the Wanderer
- Lesser-known but extremely interesting games like Larn, DoomRL, HyperRogue, Incursion, and Dungeon Hack
- "Rogue-ish" games that blur the edges of the genre, including Spelunky, HyperRogue, ToeJam & Earl, Defense of the Oasis, Out There, and Zelda Randomizer
- Interviews with such developers as Keith Burgun (100 Rogues and Auro), Rodain Joubert (Desktop Dungeons), Josh Ge (Cogmind), Dr. Thomas Biskup (ADOM), and Robin Bandy (devnull public NetHack tournament)
- An interview regarding Strange Adventures in Infinite Space
- Design issues of interest to developers and enthusiasts
Author Bio:
John Harris has bumped around the Internet for more than 20 years. In addition to writing the columns @Play and Pixel Journeys for GameSetWatch and developer interviews for Gamasutra, he has spoken at Roguelike Celebration. John Harris has a MA in English Literature from Georgia Southern University.
Table of Contents:
1 An Introduction to Some Rogues 1Section I Basics
2 What the Hell Does Q Do Again? 7
3 A View of the Field 11
4 Tips for Travel in Gridland 17
5 Brought to You Today by the Letter “Q” 23
6 Check and Mate 27
Section II Theory
7 The Berlin Interpretation 37
8 Roguelikes and OD&D 45
9 Storytelling, Bah! 49
10 Pushing the Silver Boulder 51
11 I Never Meta Rogue I Didn’t Like 57
Section III NetHack
12 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 1
13 Giant Eel Stories, Volume 2 67
14 Thou Art Early, but We’ll Admit Thee 71
15 I Believe It Not! 77
16 How to Win at NetHack 83
17 Spoiled for Options 95
18 Hack Hacks 99
19 A Quick Look at the NetHack Sources 105
20 Balancing a Game That Looks Balanceless 109
21 SLASH’EM: NetHack Intensified 113
22 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 1 119
23 Ten Years of the dev/null NetHack Tournament, Part 2 123
Section IV Dungeon Crawl
25 Crawl: Skills and Advancement 137
26 Crawl: Skill Overview 143
27 Crawl: Interesting Class and Race Pairs 153
28 Crawl: Travel Functions and Play Aids 161
29 Crawl: Dungeon Sprint 167
Section V ADOM
30 ADOM, NetHack with a Goatee 175
31 Things to Do While Visiting Ancardia 179
32 Interview: Thomas Biskup on ADOM 183
Section VI Mystery Dungeon
33 The Delights of Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 199
34 Architecture of the Mystery Dungeon 207
35 Fei’s Problems 213
36 Taloon’s Mystery Dungeon, in Great Detail 217
37 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 1 233
38 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 2 243
39 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 3 251
40 A Journey to Table Mountain, Part 4 261
Section VII Various Roguelikes
41 Angband: At Last! 277
42 Cause for Incursion 283
43 Brogue and the Abandoning of Experience Points 291
44 HyperRogue 299
45 Super-Rogue, Banished to the Deeper Dungeons 307
46 XRogue Has Not Yet Ceased to Be 313
47 Larn, or, I Hocked the Car to Buy a Lance of Death 325
48 Hack’s Lost Brother 333
49 Interview: Keith Burgun on 100 Rogues 339
50 Interview: Josh Ge on Cogmind 345
Section VIII Roguelites and Related Games
51 Pixel Journeys: dnd for PLATO 363
52 ToeJam & Earl, the Roguelike That’s Not an RPG 371
53 Interview: Digital Eel on Infinite Space 375
54 Interview: Rodain Joubert on Desktop Dungeons 385
55 Spelunky 393
56 Exploring the Oasis 401
57 The Rescue of Meta-Zelda 409
58 Space Peeing Out There 415
59 Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom 421
60 DreamForge’s Dungeon Hack 425
Section VIV Design
61 The Eight Rules of Roguelike Design 435
62 Mapping the Infinite Cavern 439
63 Purposes for Randomization in Game Design 445
64 Interface Aids and the Strategy Window 451
65 Modeling Motion on a Dungeon Grid 457
66 Rogue’s Item ID in Too Much Detail 461
67 Item Design: Potions and Scrolls 471
68 Towards Building a Better Dungeon 479
Section VV Miscellaneous
69 A Coward Dies a Thousand Deaths, but My Computer, Several Thousand 487
70 Running Atari ST Rogue in 2016 491
71 Rogue and Its Inspiration 497
72 The Rights to Rogue 501
73 Some Recent Information 505
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.
