Do you know why the roguelike genre is called that? Why was its progenitor called Rogue, what questions. The publisher Pixel Games UK has re-released the Amiga adaptation of Roguedeveloped by Epyx, on theNintendo Switch eShop. This isn’t the very first version of the game, but it’s still a great way to understand the origins of the genre.
From Rogue to Roguelike
Rogue is a role-playing game set in menacing dungeons, developed in the early 1980s by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman (later enhanced by Ken Arnold) and initially distributed for free. It became a commercial product when it migrated from Unix, its original platform, to other platforms.
The conversions were handled by a company founded by Toy, AI Design, on behalf of the American publisher Epyx. The Amiga version dates back to 1986 and is considered among the best ever, which is why it was chosen.
“In the 1980s, a computer game emerged that changed fantasy gaming forever. Randomly generated rooms made each journey into the infamous Dungeons of Doom unique. The powerful combination of random generation and permanent death was so exciting that it spawned an entire genre: “Rogue-likes.””
For the most part, Rogue is the same as it was back then, but with some modern conveniencessuch as view filters, the addition of global leaderboards, an expanded soundtrack, new achievements, and a save game mode.
Rogue for Nintendo Switch costs 8.99 euros, it has been called Epix Rogue (probably to avoid confusion with other games) and is available now on the eShop.
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