A magnificent archeological discovery has been made!

While tracing the prehistory of rogue and its roots… we have found what could be called its “Rogue’s long lost and forgotten brother”… the so called “Beneath Apple Manor” video game by Don D. Worth, predates rogue for two years, and sports most, if not all of its main features.

How could we not see this, in front of our own eyes, for so many years?

You also learned that just about everything was out to hurt you, which is kind of par for the course in a Roguelike. Monsters would pop out all over the place. On top of that, even items could hurt you. I remember finding a treasure chest with a potion in it. The game asked me if I wanted to drink the potion. In my youthful exuberance I naturally had to quaff the thing… and promptly lost all my memories. See, learning through forgetting. It’s the Rogue way to do things!

The game plays a lot like rogue, though it lacks its ASCII display, but as you can read, it even has some “hack” kind of effects, turn based gameplay, semi-complex items… the game also gives you some tips, which are helpful for the newbie. It even features simplistic shops, which is great for its time. The game is much more than just interesting for its historic value (like… *gasp* Escape from Mt. Drash), it is actually a fun game, worth giving a shoot!

Some words from the author itself, gathered from Psittacine Labs

I am the author of Beneath Apple Manor. It was released two years before Rogue came out. I was not influenced by Rogue (didn’t see it until something like 1983) and so far as I know the Rogue guys up at UC Berkeley hadn’t seen BAM either. We probably both came up with the same idea independently. But at least I can say Rouge is “Beneath Apple Manor like”. :-)

I based the game on Dungeons and Dragons (paper and pencil game) and DragonMaze (the free game that came with the Apple II).
[...]
I think the release dates were as follows:

1978 – original version from The Software Factory (my own little partnership)
1980 – I handed it over to Quality Software for marketing
1982 or 1983 (I forget) – Beneath Apple Manor Special Edition (hires graphics version)

All in all, this doesn’t take away any credit for the original creators of rogue, the game we all love. It is curious and interesting, nonetheless :)

Some links

Don’s page
Post at Psittacine Labs
A thread at gamersquarter discussing it

(Source: Derek at TIGS)

A cool new Java roguelike is on the works (Go Java, Go! :D) the Caverns of Underkeep project has reached Alpha status, and it is looking very interesting

But anyway, why won’t Caverns of Underkeep have classes? Because it’s a dungeon romp, theres no real roleplaying going on what-so-ever. Your job is to kill monsters, and to do this you’ll need to be able to fight, use magic and pick locks.

Behind all graphics and infrastructure work (you play the game as a Java Applet), the project has some interesting gameplay and dungeon generation ideas discussed in this blog. Also, his highness CG Barret (you may remember him for, ehm… CastlevaniaRL graphicworks :P) seems to be backing up the project :)

So, welcome Joshua Smyth to the roguelike world, keep on it!

Source: ASCII Dreams

Legerdemain: A Tale Fraught with Peril and Wonder is a interesting unique roguelike project under development.

Confused and memory-less, you wake up at a morbid prison cell, where are you? who are you? in time you will discover, exploring prisons, dungeons and a very detailed overworld.

Legerdemain is an epic adventure within the hallucinogenic realm of Phenomedom. You assume the role of an imprisoned dissenter seeking to learn the nature of your captivity. In doing so you shall uncover a vast conspiracy full of morbid secrets and ancient puzzles. Only by enlisting the aid of allies past and unearthing the remains of ancient cultures can you hope to solve the mystery of Legerdemain.

Focus of legerdemain is on story, along the game you will be collecting “paragraphs”, you can also check the local lore everytime to know where you are. The game is pretty detailed and complex, featuring backpack management, wounds, detailed environments and items, and anovel spell casting system (rituals)

While it is still being developed, it already contains an interesting world you can travel in and discover different places, cities and towns. You can also chat with the population in a much more depth fashion than in most roguelikes.

On the tech side, the game is written in Java and can be run via Java Web Start which is interesting. The game makes use of an emulated console and lots of unicode characters, yet another unusual thing for a roguelike.

I was glad to hear from Nathan Jerpe, creator of the game, that the project was being put back into production; this roguelike-IF hybrid will sure give more to talk within the next months.

Visit the official website for further info  and downloads

DoomRL 0.9.8.8

Alltough it’s still not 0.9.9, I present DoomRL 0.9.8.8, another step on the road of DoomRL’s development. 0.9.8.7 had a few serious bugs that needed fixing. Also, there’s a LOT of refactoring needed to present the features of DoomRL 0.9.9 and 1.0.0 — a lot of this refactoring has been done in this version.

Unangband 0.6.2-wip7e

This is a work in progress (and moreover interim, by Bandobras) release, so please save often and report bugs. Savefiles are compatible, unless the level you are on has fallen out of the levels range of the current dungeon, so it’s safest to upgrade when in Rivendell, Bree, Hobbiton or Bucklebury (their depths are unchanged).

3Dwarf Visualizer

Testing time! I finally feel comfortable releasing a public beta of my map visualizer, 3Dwarf. Please watch the tutorial video to get a feel of what the program is capable of. Keep in mind this is a beta, and some maps may not display correctly. I did most of my testing on forest maps, so they will look the best for now.

POWDER 095

While some maintainers may make a special Christmas Release that has neat features that provide joy and happiness to their players, the 094 Christmas Release had no interesting new features and a serious game crashing bug.

In penance, I have been running the stress test for a day now to hopefully avoid a similar embarassing release.

Dwarf Fortress 0.27.169.33g

A few more fixes, a few new init options and a new interface for bringing items to the trade depot. See the dev log for a complete list.

SteamBand 0.4.1 Final

It’s your Christmas gift — it’s here, bug free (crosses fingers), and fun. Everything that has been said before can be said again.

Steamband is a modern variant containing UI features such as a menu, extensive on-line help, bigscreen, terminal windows, memory features, an extensive custom monster and artifact list, and skill based character development.

Gumband, an angband variant currently being mantained by R. Dan Henry, a r.g.r.d regular, and created by Joseph William Dixon has reached version 2.3.0 with many new changes on the list.

So, what’s especially worth trying? Well, there are the three new races to play. Vampires have changed enough to be worth a new look. A Beastman is the best way to experiment with the new mutation set. A Half-Giant Archer can the game with a x7 multiplier using a heavy crossbow of extra-might. Mindcrafting has been made more convenient since I debugged the repeat-command code.

Gumband is a variant based on Zangband, but replaces most of its Amber influence with Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books. According to the current mantainer there is still a lot of ground to cover, as the project incorporates ideas from the Sword and Sorcery series.

Download source and DOS executable at http://angband.oook.cz/gumband/

Official release post detailing all changes: here via google groups

A new version of The Crypts of Despair has been released, a roguelike created with Gamemaker.

F1: Instructions F4: Windowed mode toggle.

More information and download can be found on the Gamemaker community site here.

Ascii Dreams is a developer blog from the author of Unangband which is regularly updated and also features a good amount of articles and insight into the twisted world of roguelike game development.

From the website:

Spent too much time killing letters and collecting punctuation? Ever gone to sleep and seen ASCII in front of your eyes? This is the story of one developer pulling the levers behind the curtains, building the game he wants to play, and telling you like it is.

Check it out here

Also a new version of Unangband 0.6.2-wip6a is available.

Changes from 5.4.3 to 5.4.4 include:

– Save/restore code fixed
- Fixed crash when c)alling a weapon twice
- Mac OS/X port (no binary package yet)
Please report any problems or bugs you encounter.

Binaries posted for: Windows, DOS, Linux
Source posted with autoconf and generic makefile support

You can download it from the Rogue Restoration homepage here

A new roguelike engine has just been released called Neon. Check it out here.

From the author’s website:

Neon is a flexible Java roguelike engine. It features a huge overland map and can be modified/extended through the use of JavaScript and XML. Included is an editor to make non-random maps

Kamyran’s Eye 2 has just been released the sequel to the Nokia and PC Java game Kamyran’s Eye. The game sports a full mouse driven interface and graphic tileset. <Note: This game is shareware. A demo is available.>

From the author:

Kamyran’s Eye 2 is a graphical fantasy-themed Rogue-like role-playing
game for PC available for both Windows and Linux operating systems
(shareware).

Beyond standard roguelike ingredients it has a emphasis on story and a
dynamic world with different factions, shifting alliances, armies that
fight each other and destroy cities …

Check out the website here and screenshot 1 and screenshot 2