Mike's Adventure Game (1986-89): a DOS roguelike by Michael J. Teixeira, between Rogue and Hack in size. Find the Sudbury Sapphire, held by the Imperial Dragons deep below, and bring it back up.

• About the game
• Keyboard controls
• Saving your game
• Tips
• New player's guide
• Playing in the browser
• About this version

About the game

MAG is Michael J. Teixeira's Dungeon Adventuring Game, written in C for the IBM PC and released as freeware with its source ("general permission to copy or modify, but not for profit"). This is version PC-1.1 from the summer of 1989; the game goes back to a UNIX version from about 1985. Like PC Rogue it draws the dungeon with the PC's extended character set in colour: double-line walls, dotted floors, shaded corridors.

It sits between the original Rogue and Hack: 55 monsters (a to z, A to Z, four dragons), 151 kinds of objects in twelve classes (food, potions, scrolls, wands/staffs/rods, rings, weapons, armour, shields, keys, miscellaneous things, gems, treasure), locked doors that need the right key, dark rooms lit by wall torches, pools of water, traps, a secondary weapon for bows and slings, and levels that stay as you left them.

MAG ("Mike's Adventure Game") is an original game inspired by Rogue, not a Rogue source variant. Teixeira wrote a UNIX version around 1985 and the DOS version in 1986-88 (copyright 1986, 87, 88; files dated up to September 1989). It was spread as freeware on bulletin boards and shareware disks, with the C source (Microsoft C, BIOS video and keyboard calls). RogueBasin files it as an early Rogue clone; the CRPG Addict played it in 1988's list.

The F1 help screens, the title box, the tombstone and the Hall of Heroes frame are the original files from the 1988 DOS release (SourceForge mikesadvgame), which also carries the instruction guide README.DOC (Ver PC-1.1).

Keyboard controls

Essential keys

Saving your game

• Saving is automatic. The game is stored in this browser (IndexedDB) between your commands (at most every two seconds). Reloading the page continues from there.
• R saves and ends the session, as in the original; press Play again (or reload) to continue.
• When your character dies or you quit with Q, the save is deleted: death is final. The Hall of Heroes stays.
• Each browser keeps one game. New game deletes it and starts over.
• Export save downloads the game (all its files, as mag-save.json); Import save loads one. A save only fits the version of the page that wrote it: after an update of this page an old save is dropped and a new game starts.
• Window layout, zoom, tiles/text, auto_more and the game's options are stored in the same browser storage.
• Private/incognito windows and "clear site data" delete the stored game.

Tips

• Light. Rooms are dark until a wall torch burns. Stand next to one and press I to light it with your tinderbox; a lit room shows everything in it.
• Keys and doors. Some doors carry a copper, silver or golden lock. Carry the matching key (, items) and unlock with ^K; a skeleton key opens any lock. Explore walks around locked doors.
• Bows. You start with a long bow as the secondary weapon. Press x to swap it in, fire arrows with t, and x back to the dagger before a monster reaches you.
• Hunger. A * in front of a message means hungry, a ! means fainting: eat (e). F tells you how full you are.
• Unknown items. Potions, scrolls, wands and rings have random names each game. Use c to call a kind something you will remember; a lists what you know.
• Water. Some monsters hate water: a pool (÷) between you and them can hold them off.
• Search. A dead end usually hides a secret door: ; searches several turns.
• Levels stay. Levels you leave are remembered: you can go back up to rest or fetch what you left.

New player's guide

Your goal

Somewhere below lies the Sudbury Sapphire, guarded by the Imperial Dragons. Take it and climb back out of the dungeon (the up staircase on the first level leads outside). Points come from experience, treasure and how deep you went; the Hall of Heroes keeps the best games.

The screen

The top line shows messages, the bottom line your level, hit points, strength, armour class, experience level and score. You are the smiling face; letters are monsters (lowercase are the weaker ones), symbols are objects: % food, ! potions, ? scrolls, / wands, = rings, ) weapons, ] armour, [ shields, , keys, " miscellaneous, * gems, $ treasure. ^H explains every symbol.

Your first levels

You start with food, a dagger, a long bow with arrows, studded leather armour, a shield and a tinderbox. Explore with Z, pick things up by walking over them (auto-get) or with g, and fight by walking into monsters. Jackals, giant rats and kobolds come in packs: fight them in a corridor so only one reaches you at a time. Go down with > once the level is explored.

Getting stronger

Experience levels raise your hit points. Read unknown scrolls when nothing dangerous is near (enchant armour and weapon are common); quaff unknown potions at full health. Wear the best armour you find and keep a spare food ration. Rings can be cursed: a ring you can't remove is a reason to hope for a remove curse scroll.

Playing in the browser

• Tiles / Text in the top bar (or F12) switch between the tiled windows and the original IBM PC text screen: VGA font, CP437 symbols, CGA colours.
• Tiles windows: the map on top; Messages (with history) and Status below; Inventory and Visible (monsters and objects in view) on the right. Menus and the game's own full screens pop up over the map.
• Resize windows by dragging the gaps between them; Windows hides, shows and resets them. Hover over a text window's title for A− / A+.
• Zoom: Zoom − / Zoom + change the map tiles; a map bigger than its window follows you.
• auto_more (on by default) skips the top-line =-More-= prompts; every message stays in the Messages window.
• Sound (off by default) plays a short sample for hits, misses, kills, stairs, eating, drinking and other game actions; the game names the events.
• Mouse: click an entry of a menu or list to choose it; right-click is Escape.
• Browsers keep a few shortcuts for themselves (Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N), 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

• MAG by Michael J. Teixeira, copyright 1986, 87, 88: "General permission to copy or modify, but not for profit, is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice is included."
• Map sprites: DawnLike by DragonDePlatino with DawnBringer's palette (CC BY 4.0); sprite names from DawnLikeAtlas by Tommy Ettinger (CC BY 4.0).
• Text mode font: IBM VGA 9x16 from The Oldschool PC Font Resource by VileR (CC BY-SA 4.0).

• Based on MAG version PC-1.1, Summer 1989 (Michael J. Teixeira), from a source drop without history.
• Original source: untouched import, commit cc36a63.
• Our changes (DOS layer replaced by an 80x25 BIOS screen emulation, explore, command menu, inventory, tiles, web build): memmaker/mag.