The Making of Rogue

Edge Online has published yet another of their “Making Of” features, with this latest installment taking us through the development of the action RPG forefather, Rogue.

Apart from Adventure, the other obvious source of inspiration was Dungeons & Dragons. (In the very first version, the monsters and their strengths and abilities were very closely modelled on Dungeons & Dragons,) explains Wichman, (but we quickly changed this to avoid getting in trouble with Gygax and Arneson.) The game itself involves exploring dungeons, which were depicted via ASCII graphics from an overhead view, with your character, represented by an ‘˜@’ symbol, fighting monsters, shown as capital letters, and ultimately retrieving the Amulet of Yendor. (The Amulet of Yendor is simply Rodney spelled backwards and I guess that seemed funny even though Rodney was no one in particular,) reveals Lane.

The game’s chief appeal is that the competition between the need to eat, the need to explore and acquire items, and the need to penetrate deeper levels of the Dungeons of Doom achieves such a delicate balance that it engenders a state of deep play. The geometry of exploration, in particular, is as psychologically compelling as, for example, the falling blocks of Tetris. (I think there’s a rate of change and exposure to new elements that is seductive,) notes Arnold. (You could get into a mode of movement that was nearly hypnotic, and keystrokes changed the screen a bit, so the world was successively revealed to you continuous change within a pattern.) Along the way, malevolent entities such as Aquators, with their ability to weaken armour, or Quaggas, whose chief characteristic is that their name began with a ‘˜Q’, hinder progress. And woe betide any player that receives the much-feared ‘˜A cloak of darkness falls around you’ message early in the game.