LambdaRogue

Lineage

No parent: LambdaRogue is an original game in its own Free Pascal code, not a variant of any other roguelike. RogueBasin names NetHack, Angband, ADOM, Sacred and Diablo 2 as influences, and the Google Code page files it with the “bands” (a new random level every time you take the stairs). It began in 2006 as a C++ experiment and moved to Free Pascal almost at once; 0.1 came out in July 2006, 1.0 on 3 August 2008, 1.6.4 in June 2012. A last update, 1.7, followed on itch.io on 29 December 2018. It has no known descendants.

See the family tree (among the standalone originals). Sources: RogueBasin (first release Jul 2006, 0.1), the change log (dated entries from 14 July 2006), the author’s 2010 forum post, SourceForge news (2007–2009) and the Google Code archive (download dates).

Credits

From the game’s credits screen, the soundtrack credits and RogueBasin.

Trivia

• The program file was called fprl until 1.0: “FreePascal RogueLike”, the name it had when the author started in 2006. (change log, 1.0)
• It started as a C++ experiment; the author called it the only game of his that really had players other than himself. (Pascal Game Development, 2010)
• Version 1.0 arrived on 3 August 2008, “first stable version after 2+ years”; a year later the project moved from SourceForge to Google Code. (SourceForge news)
• It is postcardware: the help asks players who like it to send the author a postcard or a handwritten letter. (RogueBasin, in-game help)
• 1.6.4 added Coffeebreak mode (no story, just dive to level 20 and kill Eris) and moved the quickbar to the bottom of the screen, “Diablo-like”. (change log)
• Level 18 is “Krice’s hideout”, guarded by a monster called Krice; the credits thank Paul “Krice” Pekkarinen. (Dungeon.pas, monsters.txt)
• Money is “Credits”, the drinks are Cola and the drug Vitari, and hospitals offer withdrawal treatment and life insurance: a post-technological fantasy world. (items.txt, help)

What's unique

• A long story in a roguelike: three chapters of plot scenes with artwork, a good and an evil ending, NPC quests by profession and religion, all around the Book of Stars.
• Gods and songs: you pray to one of five Greek gods, and magic is chanting songs learned from books, paid with psychic points (PP).
• Professions with ranks: soldier, archer, enchanter or thief, promoted at academies (Centurio to Primus Pilus, Mage to Battlemage, Hunter to Ranger).
• Distress and divine rage: taking damage builds distress (DST), which pays for your profession’s talent and your god’s divine rage; the Humility skill makes the rage stronger and cheaper.
• Screen layout: status, minimap and message log in the corners around a tiled map, with a quickbar and mouse tooltips; music and sound throughout.
• Two modes: Story mode or a Coffeebreak dive.

Code dive

• Language: Free Pascal, procedural (“still uses procedural instead of object oriented style”, the author wrote in 2010): about 37,700 lines of game code in 41 files; fprl.pas alone is 12,900 lines with the main loop and every screen. JEDI-SDL for graphics, SDL_mixer for Ogg music.
• Data files: monsters, items, gods, songs and quests are plain text records (data/*.txt, NewMonster:, NewItem: …); story and help are text files; some levels are hand-drawn text maps, the others random.
• Two outputs: SDL graphics (800×600 or 1024×768, 20×40 or 40×80 tiles) or a text console.
• This port: Free Pascal compiled straight to WebAssembly (wasm32-wasip1); one unit replaces SDL and hands the page a list of blits to draw on a canvas. Saves in IndexedDB, extra windows, an Enter command menu, an item cursor, z explore and > walking to the stairs. Source: memmaker/lambdarogue, upstream from the Google Code archive.

Stats

Manual

No manual ships with the game; its help menu is the manual: all help topics (goal, keys, status, skills, talents, fighting, magic, quests, workshop, hints). Also the change log (0.1 in 2006 to 1.6.4) and the licence (GNU GPL v2; the soundtrack under its own Creative Commons licences).

Getting started

1. Open the game, start a new game, name your hero and pick Story or Coffeebreak mode, a profession and a god.
2. In Story mode talk (t) to Abbess Ahna in the Temple of Enoa for your first quest.
3. Move with the arrow keys or hjklyubn; z explores, > walks to stairs you have seen; a acts on the tile in front of you.
4. Chant songs with m (c repeats the last), pray with p, heal with Aspirin and restore PP with Cola; spend skill points at an academy.
5. Enter lists every command; the game’s help page has keys and saving.

Help

We found no walkthrough or strategy guide (the old lambdarogue.net site and its forum are gone). Rules of thumb from the game’s own help:

• Press ? then p for hints based on your current character.
• Talk to the assistant of the Lonely Librarian in the Sewers of Enoa: a good start for the Book of Stars.
• Pray regularly; your god gets angry if you never do. Keep humility up for divine rage.
• Identify unknown weapons and armour before using them; train the skill of the weapon you wield.
• Read the general hints and fighting pages. More: RogueBasin, the Google Group, the itch.io page.

Cheats

The source has a debug console (CheatCodes in fprl.pas: ME.SET, ME.RANK, ME.GOD, ME.HEAL, MAP.QUAKE, REALITY.INIT …), but its key B is commented out, so no build, including this one, can reach it. No wizard mode, no cheat options.

• Save scumming: Export save / Import save on the game page. A life insurance from a hospital (Story mode) brings you back after death.