Advanced Rogue taken to the extreme: ten classes, 400 monsters, gods and dragons.
UltraRogue (Herb Chong, 1985 to 1995) grew out of Advanced Rogue into the largest game of the Rogue family: ten classes including druid, illusionist and ninja, about four hundred monsters from dinosaurs to the Valar and the gods of Greyhawk, bags, artifacts and a trading post. You begin in Friendly Fiend's Flea Market. Somewhere deep below lies an artifact; the stairs lead up again only once you carry it. Death is permanent.
About the game
UltraRogue is a Rogue descendant: one screen per level, no town and no word of recall. You can only go up once you carry the artifact from the bottom of the dungeon.
- Spells and prayers both use c; power points (Pow) pay for them.
- Items are identified by use and look different every game. Bags hold more items.
- There are far more monster kinds than in any other Rogue: when something unknown appears, / identifies the letter.
Keyboard controls
The keys to remember
- ?
- In-game help (* all commands, @ items)
- x
- Auto-explore: walk to the nearest unexplored spot
- Enter
- Menu of all commands
- i
- Inventory with a cursor: letter = use, Enter = all actions
- <
- Go up (walks to the nearest known staircase)
- >
- Go down (walks to the nearest known staircase)
- O
- Your class and quest item
Essential keys
Moving
- hjklyubn/arrow keys
- Walk / attack
- Shift + direction
- Run
- x
- Auto-explore
- >
- Down stairs (walks to the nearest known ones)
- <
- Up stairs (only with the artifact)
- .
- Rest
- s
- Search
Fighting & magic
- f/F
- Fight (to the death)
- t
- Throw
- z
- Zap a wand or staff
- c
- Cast a spell / say a prayer
- p
- Pray for help (risky)
- a
- Affect the undead
Items
- i
- Inventory with a cursor
- ,
- Pick up
- d
- Drop
- w
- Wield
- W
- Wear armour
- T
- Take armour off
- P/R
- Put on / remove a ring
- q
- Quaff
- r
- Read
- e
- Eat
- A
- Apply an artifact
Information & system
- Enter
- Command menu
- ?
- Help (* for all)
- Ctrl+P
- Previous messages
- o
- Options
- S
- Save and quit
- Q
- Quit
Complete key list (49 commands)
?prints help
/identify object
hleft
jdown
kup
lright
yup & left
uup & right
bdown & left
ndown & right
HShift+direction: run that way
m + directionmove onto without picking up
xexplore (any key stops)
t + directionthrow something
z + directionzap a wand or staff
>go down (walks to known stairs)
<go up (walks to known stairs)
ssearch for trap/secret door
.rest for a while
,pick up an object
iinventory all items
Iinventory type of item
qquaff potion
rread paper
eeat food
wwield a weapon
Wwear armor
Ttake armor off
Pput on ring
Rremove ring
Aactivate/apply an artifact
ddrop object
Ccall object (generic)
Mmark object (specific)
oexamine/set options
ccast a spell/say a prayer
ppray for help (risky)
aaffect the undead
^set a trap
Ddip something (into a pool)
^T + directiontake (steal) from (direction)
Ctrl+Rredraw screen
Ctrl+Pback up to 10 previous messages
vprint program version number
Ssave game
Qquit
=listen for monsters
f + directionfight monster
F + directionfight monster to the death
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
- Spend your starting gold at the Flea Market: better armour first, then healing potions.
- You can keep up to ten characters: the class screen offers to save one you like and reuse it.
- Most monsters are only dangerous in groups: fight in corridors.
- = listens for monsters nearby.
- Unknown potions and scrolls are safest to try at full health with nothing around.
New player's guide
Your first steps
- Pick a class (a–j); the fighter or paladin is forgiving. Answer n to "save this character" unless you want to reuse it.
- In the Flea Market press b to buy, l to leave.
- x explores; fight by walking into monsters. > walks to known stairs and goes down.
- 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. Herb Chong started UltraRogue from an early Advanced Rogue in 1984 and kept extending it until the mid-1990s.
Its change log (history.txt) starts in December 1984 with "the dungeon gets nastier".
The intention. "The Ultimate Adventure in the Dungeons of Doom": more of everything, and harder.
The big changes since Advanced Rogue.
- Ten classes, including illusionist and ninja.
- About 400 monster kinds, the most of any Rogue.
- Bags that hold items, mithril and crystalline armour, many more weapons, and saved characters you can reuse.
- A market at the start (the Flea Market) and an artifact at the bottom to bring back up.
Trivia. Early versions had "holiday" code that refused to run during working hours, and read the system load average so that it would not slow down shared machines.
The family at a glance (numbers counted in each game's source):
| Game | Year | By | Built on | Classes | Monster kinds | Goal |
|---|
| Rogue 3.6 | 1981 | Toy, Wichman, Arnold | — | none | 26 | Amulet, level 26 |
| Rogue 5.4 | 1985 | Toy, Wichman, Arnold | Rogue 5.2/5.3 | none | 26 (new set) | Amulet, level 26 |
| Rogue PC | 1985 | Toy, Lane, Wichman (A.I. Design / Epyx) | Rogue 5.x | none | 26 | Amulet, level 26 |
| Super-Rogue | 1984 | Robert D. Kindelberger | Rogue 3.6 | none | 52 | Amulet, level 35+ |
| Advanced Rogue 5.8 | 1985 | Michael Morgan, Ken Dalka | Rogue 3.6, Super-Rogue | 4 | 120 | a random relic (11) |
| UltraRogue | 1985–95 | Herb Chong | Advanced Rogue | 10 | about 400 | the artifact at the bottom |
| Advanced Rogue 7.7 | 1986 | Michael Morgan, Ken Dalka | Advanced Rogue 5.8 | 9 | 125 | a random relic (16) |
| XRogue 8 | 1991 | Robert Pietkivitch | Advanced Rogue 7.7 | 9 | 211 | your class's relic |
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 (UltraRogue 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