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The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Many early roguelikes featured ASCII graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many monsters, items, and environmental features. Computer roguelikes usually employ the majority of the keyboard to facilitate interaction with items and the environment. The name of the genre comes from the 1980 game Rogue.

Contents 1 History 2 Gameplay 2.1 Features 3 Legacy 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

The roguelike genre takes its name from Rogue, a role-playing video game based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, including concepts such as stats and experience points.^[1]

Some features of Rogue existed in earlier games, notably: Adventure (1975), Dungeon (1975), and several written for the PLATO system, such as the multi-user games dnd (1975) and Moria (1975). Both dnd and Moria utilized limited graphics. Moria offered a primitive first-person, three-dimensional view,^[2] while dnd presented a top-down map view similar to Rogue.

In Rogue and Moria, the dungeon is randomly regenerated when the player begins, creating a new challenge each time.

[edit] Gameplay

These games present a plain view. Traditionally, an "@" sign represents the player character. Letters of the alphabet represent other characters (usually opposing monsters). Rogue itself only made use of capital letters, but present-day roguelikes vary capitalization to supply additional visual cues. A dog, for example, may be represented by the letter "d", and a dragon by a "D". Coloration may signal further distinction between creatures. For example, a Red Dragon might be represented by a red "D" and a Blue Dragon by a blue "D", each of differing abilities significant to player strategy. Additional dungeon features are represented by other ASCII (or ANSI) symbols. A traditional sampling follows.

------                             -  Wall  |....|      ############           #  Unlit hallway  |....|      #          #           .  Lit area  |.$..+########         #           $  Some quantity of gold  |....|       #      ---+---        +  A door  ------       #      |.....|        |  Wall               #      |.!...|        !  A magic potion               #      |.....|               #      |..@..|        @  The adventurer    ----       #      |.....|    |..|       #######+..D..|        D  A red dragon    |<.+###    #      |.....|        <  Stairs to a higher level    ----  #    #      |.?...|        ?  A magic scroll          ######      -------

Graphical adaptations are available for most early roguelikes, and it is not uncommon for new development projects to adopt a graphical user interface.

Players issue game commands with at most a few keystrokes, rather than with simple sentences interpreted by a parser or by means of a pointing device such as a mouse. For example, in NetHack one would press "r" to read a scroll, "d" to drop an item, and "q" to quaff (drink) a potion.

This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (October 2007)

[edit] Features

• Roguelike games randomly generate dungeon levels; though they may include static levels as well. Generated layouts typically incorporate rooms connected by corridors, some of which may be preset to a degree (e.g., monster lairs or treasuries). Open areas or natural features, like rivers, may also occur.

• The identity of magical items varies across games. Newly discovered objects only offer a vague physical description, with purposes and capabilities left unstated. For example, a "bubbly" potion might heal wounds one game, then poison the player character in the next. Items are often subject to alteration, acquiring specific traits, such as a curse, or direct player modification.

• The combat system is turn-based instead of real-time. Gameplay is usually step-based, where player actions are performed serially and take a variable measure of in-game time to complete. Game processes (e.g., monster movement and interaction, progressive effects such as poisoning or starvation) advance based on the passage of time dictated by these actions.

• Most are single-player games. On multi-user systems, scoreboards are often shared between players. Some roguelikes allow traces of former player characters to appear in later game sessions in the form of ghosts or grave markings. Multi-player derivatives such as TomeNET, MAngband, and Crossfire do exist and are playable online.

• Roguelikes traditionally implement permanent death ("permadeath"). Once a character dies, the player must begin a new game. A "save game" feature will only provide suspension of gameplay and not a limitlessly recoverable state; the stored session is deleted upon resumption or character death. Players can circumvent this by backing up stored game data ("save scumming"), an act that may be considered cheating.

[edit] Legacy

This section requires expansion.

Several online communities, including the rec.games.roguelike Usenet hierarchy, exist to discuss roguelikes.

According to 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish, action role-playing games such as Blizzard's Diablo can also be considered types of roguelikes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way through increasingly difficult monsters and attain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generated dungeons to complete quests.^[1]

Salon.com's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizzard's designers readily acknowledged their debt to Nethack and other Roguelikes".^[3]

[edit] See also

• Chronology of roguelike video games
• MUD
• ADOM
• DoomRL

[edit] References

This section includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (December 2008)

• Matt Barton (May 5, 2009). "The History of Rogue: Have @ You, You Deadly Zs". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4013/the_history_of_rogue_have__you_.php. 
• Roguelike Roundup at Kuro5hin
• Introduction to Roguelike Games

[edit] External links

• Roguelikes at the Open Directory Project
• RogueBasin, a wiki devoted to roguelikes
• Guide to Roguelike Games
• rec.games.roguelike Usenet hierarchy at Google Groups
• Temple of the Roguelike, an online roguelikes community

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