624: ClassicRogue SDL \\ Learning to search for secret doors, and other Rogue / roguelike skills!
0ClassicRogue SDL version, 2/27/19 Windows build. It's a free, open source modern port of Rogue (probably Rogue 1.48), the game that kicked off the roguelike genre in the early 80s! https://sites.google.com/site/donnierussellii/rogue
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I was wrong! This isn't "ClassicRogue 2.5," as I said in the video; that may be the one from tile maker Oryx Design Lab ; the files from "ClassicRogue 2.5" I got from the collection of Rogue versions at https://coredumpcentral.org/download.html are dated 2013; that version just gives a DirectX error on my Windows 10 machine--also what I got from Oryx's download.
A text file from coredumpcentral's ClassicRogue 2.5 says the game is based on Rogue version 1.48. Their download list says the same, and that the Amiga version published by Epyx was v1.48; it calls Epyx's DOS v1.45 and v1.49; not sure if these numbers are Epyx's versions numbers, or refer to corresponding versions of Unix Rogue. Coredumpcentral dates the Epyx DOS versions as 1985; Google hits say Amiga Rogue is 1986. Not sure when Unix Rogue originally reached v1.48, but possibly '85, then? Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(video_game) says Rogue first appeared in 1980.
In this video I'm playing the port from port author Donnie Russell II's site, https://sites.google.com/site/donnierussellii/rogue . He titles the page "Rogue," but notes "also known as ClassicRogue," and describes it as "a port of the computer game Rogue to SDL and Javascript with optional tiles, sound effect, and undo capability." The game shows an older-style "Rogue" logo on the title screen. The files are named "SDLRogue," and title screen credits says "SDL version by Donnie Russell II / Tiles by Oryx." The "v" command in-game says "SDL version by Donnie Russell II / Tiles by Oryx / Feb 27 2019 @ 11:02:15."
Coredumpcentral calls ClassicRogue 1.51 the "last open-source version of ClassicRogue for Windows." Russell's page for this "SDL version" has a link to "Source" which yields a file called "Source_SDL_JS_Rogue.7z."
I think I found ClassicRogue through Oryx's site, which I was looking at because I'd just tried Infra Arcana, which also uses Oryx's smooth fantasy-styled graphical tiles. And, like Infra Arcana, ClassicRogue has optional sound FX (but not IA's ambient music). You can toggle tiles off, but the default "OEM chars," I think based on the original versions of Rogue, are hideous; from the title screen you can switch to "ASCII chars" instead, and those use what looks like a modern console font, and less intense characters and colors, but if you toggle them during gameplay (with `), the screen only redraws as you explore, so you have mixed tiles and ASCII for a while.
Extra slow here in my first real sit-down with the game as I'm trying to learn the traditional roguelike "vi" movement keys rather than using arrow keys or numpad; this version also supports mouse input.
I ended up living way longer than expected! I created and killed a now-extinct species! ;_; ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga ). I got confused (I mean personally, not the in-game status effect, which I did get briefly later from experimenting with I think a potion ;) and put on what turned out to be cursed armor!
While mumbling through old Rogue FAQs ( https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/unixlinux/564240-rogue/faqs ), I thought because it said the Aquator couldn't destroy leather armor, and yet an Aquator had damaged my cursed leather armor, that Aquators not being able to damage leather armor must have been changed in a later version of Rogue (FAQ was for Rogue v1.1), but now I'm thinking maybe the Aquator was able to damage it because it *was* cursed. FAQs say there's a scroll that can remove curses.
The game called me "CHEATER" on the high score screen, and didn't save that score, because I had "Dark Rooms" toggled Off--so I guess I'll butch up and have them on next time. : P
Rogue is wild, man--wild! AIs sometimes don't come after you, maybe don't even attack until you move right next to them; are those AIs--or AI types?--neutral until you violate their personal space, or are they scared and waiting to ambush you later (as one ice monster did to me...I think?), or...? Hallways are "always dark" (why do they show floor dots like illuminated parts of rooms then? : P) so you can't plant yourself in a hall corner with your bow while healing... The game will drop you into a sealed room from a stairway and count on you to find a secret exit... Man!
Also, wands of polymorph are um well you never know what you're gonna get. ; )
10/3/21
#classicrogue #roguelike #roguegame