Rogue

classic game that started a whole genre, and for good reason. And despite all of the amazing games this laid the path for, I often find myself drawn back to the original. It still holds up very well once you learn the controls and UI. the loop is addicting. there is a good mix of luck and skill required to progress. The turn based movement and battles really let you think every action through, so the deaths feel pretty fair. It's brutally difficult, in fact it's one of the hardest games I've played. but at the same time it's short and easy to hop back into another run. This game was designed as a role playing game, and despite starting the rogue-like genre it is an 80s RPG at it's core. You name your rogue, level them up and choose what gear to use, with options between melee, ranged and magic found throughout the dungeons. The mechanics are very heavily inspired by DnD as with most early role playing games. These roleplaying mechanics add a lot of depth to each run. As with most old games, the manual is practically required. The controls and UI are archaic by today's standards, but they still work for the game. There is no tutorial. All of the game's info from controls, mechanics, UI to even story and lore are all found in the manual. I highly recommend this game to fans of rogue-likes who want to see where the genre started, and to fans of old school RPGs.

This can be a fun game to play while trying to go for a high score or see how far you can go into the dungeon. But actually trying to beat it is going to crush your spirit, snort it, and sneeze it back onto you. Its cheap so I cant say that experiencing an admittedly fun piece of gaming history isn't worth it. Just keep in mind actually trying to beat it is very luck based.

I don't seem to be able to leave a comment on it so I'm gunna address the person with the wild username and negative vote in the reviews here and say this is my first time playing Rogue but this version's been great, and that they didn't add the QOL updates that user wanted simply because it's stated in the description on the store page, this is released as a very specific port of Rogue, and almost all those options already exist in this version of the game. Hitting F1 or ? Brings up a list of all the possible commands in the game, and hitting S (not s, gotta be a capital S) to save your game and return to it later (when you leave the game this way, launch it from your steam library and you'll be asked if you want to start a new run or continue your previous one. Which, from what I can find online, actually is easier than the original way). Beyond that though I don't blame anyone who doesn't enjoy it, it's a very different game from those that we have today and could be frustrating if you took it too seriously, but as long as you're okay with the game not being fair and are willing to laugh it off when the dungeon's just out to kill you it's a fun way to unwind and kill some time. Just make sure to give yourself a silly name and treat each run like a goofy story, it gives your personal leaderboard a more fun view when you remember how poor little Bobby Hill ran out of food, blacked out every 3 steps for two floors then got beat to death by an Emu.

Where do I even begin with this game. My hate for it is unmatched compared to anything in the world. I've seen atrocities and men cause less damage than this game. For starters the graphics are terrible and there is absolutely no immersion, but I can forgive this due to the games age. Next, the gameplay and design choices are absolutely terrible, who would have thought that dying should make you start the game all over? bastard should be shot. Third, the ui design is extremely lazy, the devs didn't even bother to make custom sprites for weapons and items in the menus, and speaking of the menus they are horribly made and are a nightmare to navigate. I didn't even know how to get there until I started pressing every key on my keyboard out of frustration. But none of this compares to my biggest issue with this game and why I bothered to take time out of my busy day of masturbating and playing actually good games: the creation of the disgusting, painful, awful, "game" genre that is rogue-likes. My hate for this genre cannot be described with words but I will try anyway. The human body has about 30-37 trillion cells that make it up. If words that could be used to describe my feelings for this game, such as rage, disappointment, and hate were engraved on each planck length worth of space on each cell it would not equal one trillionth of the hate I feel for this games consequences at this very moment. This game could've just shriveled up and died like the parasite that it is, but no! People saw this game and had the brilliant idea of "what if we made more games like this?" wouldn't that be FUN?! NO! I am tired of this genre infecting spaces I enjoy! I hate seeing passionate indie devs working hard on their game, only for it to be another rogue-like that will be lost to the wind like every game before it. They're like lambs to the slaughter, which makes me feel at least an iota of pity for them falling victim to it. If I had a penny for every instance of an interesting game turning out to be a slop-like I'd have enough money to buy the properties of Elon Musk and Donald Trump! If this game was erased from existence nothing but good would come from it! DESTROY ROUGE-LIKES!!

Rogue was revolutionary and genre-defining for its time, but like most games that fall into that category, there is little reason to go back to it. I would say give it a shot if you're interested in playing the game that created the rogue and rogue-like genres, but it's not worth the $2.99 price tag. Paying for Rogue would be like paying for Pong. 2/10

Rogue like fans when they find out rogue is an actual game and not just a genre