Rogue with classes, spells and a quest: the parent of XRogue.

Advanced Rogue (Michael Morgan and Ken Dalka, from 1984) took the 1980 Rogue and added nine classes (fighter, ranger, paladin, magic user, cleric, thief, assassin, druid, monk), spells, prayers and chants, over a hundred monsters, trading posts and wilderness levels. You get a quest item, an artifact somewhere deep down; carry it back up past level 1 to win. Version 7.7 is the last Advanced Rogue before XRogue. 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 to return to and no word of recall. The way home is up the stairs, level by level; stairs (%) go both ways.

• Each class has its own trick: magic users cast (C), clerics and paladins pray (p), druids and monks chant (c), thieves and assassins steal (Ctrl+T).
• Items are identified by use; potions, scrolls, rings and wands look different every game.
• Trading posts and wilderness levels appear deeper down.

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

• You start in Friendly Fiend's Equipage with gold. Step on an item and press $ for its price, # to buy it. > walks to the stairs and enters the dungeon.
• Armour and a weapon first, then a healing potion. Keep gold for food.
• The start message names your quest artifact; ^R repeats it.
• Carrying too much slows you down: the Status window shows Carry.
• 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 (1–9); a fighter or paladin is forgiving. Esc fills your stats; y accepts.
2. Shop: walk onto items, # buys. Wear armour (W) and wield a weapon (w), or use i and pick the item.
3. > enters the dungeon, x explores. Fight by walking into monsters.
4. Rest (.) when hurt, eat (e) when Hungry shows.

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. 7.7 (1986) is the last Advanced Rogue by Morgan and Dalka, and the base of XRogue.

The big changes since 5.8.

• Nine classes instead of four: ranger, paladin, assassin, druid and monk join fighter, magician, cleric and thief. Druids and monks chant (c), assassins and thieves steal.
• 16 relics instead of 11, still chosen at random each game: the Eye of Vecna, the Wand of Orcus, the Ring of Surtur …
• 125 monster kinds; stats are rolled and assigned at the start.

Trivia. Two relics hide the authors: the Quill of Nagrom (Morgan backwards) and the Axe of Aklad (Dalka backwards), just as Rogue's Yendor is Rodney.

What is unique about it. It is the most complete "classic" Advanced Rogue: every class has its own tricks, but the game is still one screen per level with Rogue's feel.

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 7.7 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 7.7.1 (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/arogue7.7, commit 976b5bb
• Our changes (port, auto-explore, command menu, web build): memmaker/arogue7.7, compared with the original