The early Advanced Rogue: four classes, a quest artifact and 120 monsters.

Advanced Rogue 5.8 (Michael Morgan and Ken Dalka, 1985) is an early version of the Rogue expansion that later became XRogue. Four classes (fighter, magician, cleric, thief), spells and prayers, about 120 monsters, trading posts and wilderness levels. You are given a quest artifact deep in the dungeon; carry it back up to win. You start in the dungeon with a weapon, armour and food. Death is permanent.

• About the game
• Keyboard controls
• Saving your game
• Tips
• New player's guide
• History & differences
• Playing in the browser

About the game

Advanced Rogue is a Rogue descendant: one screen per level, no town and no word of recall. The way home is up the stairs, level by level; stairs (%) go both ways.

• Magicians cast (C), clerics pray (p), thieves steal (Ctrl+T) and set traps (^).
• Items are identified by use; potions, scrolls, rings and wands look different every game.

Keyboard controls

Essential keys

Saving your game

• Saving is automatic. The game is stored in this browser (IndexedDB) every two minutes while it waits for your next command, and whenever you switch to another tab or window. Reloading the page continues from there.
• S (answer y) saves and ends the session, as in the original; reload the page (or press Play again) to continue.
• When your character dies or you quit with Q, the save is deleted: death is final.
• Each browser keeps one game. New game deletes it and starts over.
• Export save downloads the save file; Import save loads one. Use them for a backup or to move a game to another browser or computer.
• Window layout, zoom and the sound switch is stored in the same browser storage.
• Private/incognito windows and "clear site data" delete the stored game. Export first if it matters.

Tips

• At character creation you can re-roll (y) until the stats and starting gear suit you.
• The start message names your quest artifact; ^R repeats it.
• Trading posts (^ on the map) take you shopping: $ prices, # buys, % sells.
• Carrying too much slows you: watch Carry in the Status window.
• Unknown potions and scrolls are safest to try at full health with nothing around.

New player's guide

Your first steps

1. Choose a class (1–4); the fighter is forgiving. Re-roll with y or keep with n.
2. You start wearing armour and holding a weapon. x explores; fight by walking into monsters.
3. Rest (.) when hurt, eat (e) when Hungry shows.
4. > walks to the nearest known stairs and goes down.

History & differences

Where it all started. Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman wrote Rogue at UC Santa Cruz in 1980, using Ken Arnold's new curses library to draw on the whole screen. Arnold joined them at Berkeley, and Rogue spread with BSD Unix. Its name now stands for the whole genre: random levels, permadeath, items identified by use.

This version. Michael Morgan and Ken Dalka wrote Advanced Rogue at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1984, starting from Rogue 3.6 and ideas from Super-Rogue. 5.8 (1985) is the first version that went out widely.

The intention. Turn Rogue into Dungeons & Dragons: classes, spells, prayers and the D&D bestiary.

The big changes since Rogue.

• Character classes for the first time in a Rogue: fighter, magician (spells, C), cleric (prayers, p) and thief (stealing and traps).
• 120 monster kinds, mostly from D&D, down to arch-devils, demon princes and deities deep below.
• The goal is no longer only the Amulet: each game picks one of 11 unique relics (the Amulet of Yendor is just one of them). Bring it back up to become a "Complete Winner".
• Stairs go both ways (%), trading posts on the way down, and outdoor levels.

Trivia. The manual still calls itself "The Dungeons of Doom" and credits AT&T Bell Laboratories; the copyright is shared with AT&T.

The family at a glance (numbers counted in each game's source):

Playing in the browser

• Windows: the tiled map on top; Messages (with history) and Status below on the left; Inventory on the right. Help, lists and menus pop up over the map.
• Resize windows by dragging the gaps between them; a window's contents shrink to fit when it is too small. Reset windows puts everything back.
• Zoom: A− / A+ on the Map title bar (shown on hover) change the size of the map tiles (up to 96 px); when the map is bigger than its window it scrolls to follow you. Hover over a text window's title to show its A− / A+ buttons.
• Sound effects are off until you switch them on under Audio ▾. They are synthesized for this port (Advanced Rogue 5.8 has no sound of its own); there is no music.
• Keys: hjklyubn, the arrow keys or the numeric keypad move you; capital letters run.
• Browsers keep a few shortcuts for themselves (Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, and Cmd shortcuts on a Mac), so those never reach the game.
• If the game ever crashes, a message appears at the top; reload the page to continue from the last autosave.

About this version

• Based on Advanced Rogue 5.8.2 (Michael Morgan, Ken Dalka).
• Tiles: NetHack (default) or DawnLike by DragonDePlatino with DawnBringer's palette (CC BY 4.0), sprites picked by name via Tommy Ettinger's DawnLikeAtlas; switch with the Tiles button.
• Original source: RoguelikeRestorationProject/arogue5.8, commit 49b1289
• Our changes (port, auto-explore, command menu, web build): memmaker/arogue5.8, compared with the original