Rogue PC

The Epyx IBM PC edition of Rogue, 1985

Date of birth1985 v1.48; Rogue itself 1980

CreatorsToy · Wichman · Lane A.I. Design for Epyx

LanguageC + 8086 asm ~18,300 lines

PlatformIBM PC, DOS CGA text mode

Lineage

Rogue PC is the IBM PC port of Berkeley Rogue 5.2/5.3, done by A.I. Design (Michael Toy and Jon Lane) and published by Epyx in 1985. It is a sibling of Rogue 5.4, with colours, CP437 line graphics and a title picture. Our build is the modern C port of the 1.48 source. See the family tree.

Credits

Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman	Designed Rogue
Ken Arnold, Jon Lane, Michael Toy	“Various implementations” (title screen)
A.I. Design	IBM PC adaptation
Epyx	Publisher (copyright 1985)
rogue-pc-modern-C	Modern C port of the 1.48 source (MestreLion/roguepc)

Screenshots

The credits title screen — The title screen, with the original credits and “Rogue’s Name?”.

A lit room with gold — First steps: “Hello Shrine. Welcome to the Dungeons of Doom.”

Fighting a hobgoblin — A fight: “You swing and hit the hobgoblin.”

Inventory with a cursor — Inventory: food, ring mail, a mace, a bow and arrows.

Trivia

Epyx found its own staff playing Rogue and paid for the PC and other home computer versions. (Wikipedia)
The 1.48 source turned up in 2016; it compiled with a 1985 Aztec C compiler, but copy protection made it unplayable until that was patched out. (Virtually Fun)
The function that shows the Epyx title picture is called epyx_yuck(). (source: load.c)
The copy protection read the floppy directly and even set a timer to halt the PC if you stepped through it in a debugger. (source: protect.c)

What's unique

Colour and CP437 graphics instead of plain letters: walls drawn with line characters, a smiley for the hero.
Same rules as Berkeley Rogue: 26 levels to the Amulet of Yendor, and back up.

Code dive

Language: C with 8086 assembly (begin.asm, dos.asm, zoom.asm), about 18,300 lines. Source files carry “A.I. Design” version stamps from 1983–85.
Environment: PC-DOS on IBM PC and compatibles, CGA/EGA; its own built-in curses writes to video memory.
This port: the modern C port (over 85% of the code intact) with our SDL2 frontend, tiles and a WebAssembly build. Source: memmaker/roguepc.

Stats

Thing	Count	Notable ones
Classes	1
Monsters	26	One per letter, as in Rogue 5.x.
Potions	14
Scrolls	15
Rings	14
Wands & staffs	14
Weapons	10
Armour	8
Traps	6
Levels	26+	Amulet on level 26.

Manual

The Epyx “Rogue” instruction manual (1985) is not ours to host; read it at The Rogue Archive (HTML).

Getting started

Open the game, type a name at “Rogue’s Name?” and press Enter.
Move with the arrow keys, numpad or hjkl; walk into monsters to fight; x explores.
Enter lists every command; i the inventory. Tiles / Text switch the look.
> goes down the stairs.
All keys: the in-game guide.

Help

No walkthrough exists. Tips:

Same strategy as all Rogues: corridors, rest, test items when safe.
More: RogueBasin.

Cheats

The source has a WIZARD (“God mode”) compile option; it is not built in here.
Save scumming: Export save / Import save.