In late 1986 I spent a great deal of time gaming on my Atari 520ST. I received a number of games for it that Christmas, but one in particular stole weeks and months of my life away. It was Rogue, the famed dungeon crawling adventure published by Epyx and dating back to 1980. A nice thing about Rogue is that it and its variants have been ported to most every computing platform in existence. And ever since my first taste of that classic, I’ve gone out of my way to secure a copy for basically every machine I’ve owned. That said, it’s with a heavy heart that I’ve carried around a Rogueless iPhone 2.0 these four and a half months.
And now, thanks to Gandreas Software, my plight is resolved. Rogue for the iPhone just hit the App Store [link]. And it’s free.
Wikipedia describes Rogue‘s gameplay.
In Rogue, the player assumes the typical role of an adventurer of early fantasy role-playing games. The game starts at the uppermost 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, then ascend to the surface. Until the Amulet is retrieved, the player cannot return to earlier levels. Monsters in the levels become progressively more difficult to defeat. Rare is the adventurer who will again see the light of day.
Features as listed by the developer:
- Playable in either “ASCII" mode, or graphics mode (just rotate the device to switch)
- Obscure keyboard commands replaced with a simple taps for movement, or a handy command picker.
- Commands can also be activated by a unique gesture based command – want to search for a secret door? Swipe across the top of the play area (all the gestures are shown on the command picker for easy reference)
- Graphics can be zoomed in/out via pinch
- Completely faithful Rogue experience (all the levels, monsters, potions, scrolls, etc…)
If you’re an adventure fan or a retro fan…or both, you won’t want to let this classic pass you by.
App Store Link: Rogue, Free
