Roguelike game

Draft

Introduction

According to Wikipedia, “The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by level randomization and permanent death. [...] The family of roguelike games are based on the video game Rogue, programmed for Unix-based systems in 1980.[1] Rogue was loosely based on the fantasy settings of the tabletop Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, and cast the player as an adventurer exploring a multi-leveled dungeon that was procedurally generated, where the player fought creatures and gained equipment and treasure. With early computers, the dungeon was represented using ASCII characterization, where each character space on the screen represented a tile, and different symbols corresponded to the player, items, monsters, and the dungeons' wall and floors. Rogue is a turn-based game; in a turn-based game, a player executes one action, such as moving or attacking a monster, after which the game updates all the other elements in the game.” (retrieved 17:56, 2 December 2013 (CET)).

Nethack

Nethack was originally released in 1987. As of Nov 2013, the latest revision is 3.4.3 and was released on Dec 2003.

According to [ Lev Grossman] (Time), “Nethack is the most celebrated member of the ancient and honorable family of games descended from Rogue [...] The character classes alone give you a sense of the game’s depth: you can play as an archeologist, a barbarian, a caveman, a knight, a samurai, a valkyrie, a tourist, or half a dozen other options. Nethack is a demanding game — its difficulty and quirkiness have kept it a cult phenomenon — but it’s more compelling than most of the chip-melting, big-budget graphical RPGs being released now.”

Rogues game links

Online

• JavaRogue. Original Rogue running as Java applet. No registration needed, but Java must be installed on your computer.

Critique

Nethack is often hailed as one of the best video games ever, e.g. in Time Magazine's ALL-TIME 100 Video Games (2012).

Download

• Nethack homepage. Includes downloads and manuals.

Bibliography and links

Nethack

• The best game ever, by Wagner James Au, Jan 27 2000, Salon.
• Nethack player’s guide by Eric S. Raymond.
• In the Beginning was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson.