Rogue (the computer game)

Since we are on memory lane, I'll talk about one of the first computer games I played.  I played this on a PDP-11 as I recall, but I'll write about that later. 

This is Rogue.  You are trekking through a dungeon and killing various creatures.  You get to drink potions and cast spells - how fun is that??!

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(computer_game):

Rogue is a dungeon crawling computer game dating from 1980. It inspired a class of derivatives known collectively as "roguelikes". Some of the popular members of this gaming genre include Hack, NetHack, Larn, Moria, ADOM, Alphaman, UltraRogue, and Angband.

800px-RogueScreenShot

Overview
Rogue was ported to all common operating systems. It is seen here on Mac OS X. The original game was monochrome. Color was quickly added to the first ports by the original authors for the first generation of home computers.

Rogue was extremely popular in the early to mid-1980s at colleges using UNIX systems. Monsters were represented by capital letters (such as Z for zombie), and as such there were 26 types. Each dungeon level had a 3 room by 3 room grid, or a dead-end hallway where a room would have been expected. Later variations include "mazes" in the place of rooms as well. While the graphics are archaic by today's gaming standards, the strategy necessary to play and succeed is more complex than many RPGs of the 1990s and 2000s. Due to this complexity, the game is still quite playable today. With an assortment of potions, scrolls, wands, weapons, armor, and food, there are many ways to succeed, and many ways to die. Maximizing the character's survival potential is always a challenge. Unlike many games, it is nearly impossible that a player can become so powerful that the gameplay becomes uninteresting, except at advanced stages.

In Rogue, the player assumes the typical role of an adventurer of early fantasy role-playing games. The game starts at the top level of an unmapped dungeon with myriad monsters and treasure. The goal is to fight one's way to the bottom, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor on level 26, and return to the top. Until the amulet is retrieved, the player cannot go back to earlier levels. Rare was the adventurer who would again see the light of day. Monsters in the levels become progressively more difficult to defeat. Unlike most adventure games of the time, the dungeon layout and the placement of objects within it are randomly generated. Every time it is played, exploration is equally risky.

In the original, all the aspects of the dungeon, including the character and the monsters, were represented by letters and symbols. This type of display made it appropriate for a dumb terminal. Later ports of the game allowed replacing the characters with graphical tiles. The basic movement keys (h, left; j, down; k, up; and l, right) are the same as the cursor control keys in the vi editor (see also HJKL keys). Other game actions also used a single keystroke- q to quaff a potion, w to wield a weapon, e to eat some food, etc.

Rogue worked off the termcap database which was an amazing feature of Unix systems and not commonly remembered. By specifying and collecting terminal information on competing vendors, the game could be played on very different CRTs.