






              A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom


                       Michael C. Toy
                  Kenneth C. R. C. Arnold


              Computer Systems Research Group
 Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
                  University of California
                Berkeley, California  94720




                          ABSTRACT

    Rogue  is a visual CRT based fantasy game which runs
    under the UNIX timesharing system.  This  paper  de-
    scribes how to play rogue, and gives a few hints for
    those who might otherwise get lost in  the  Dungeons
    of Doom.




1.  Introduction

     You  have  just finished your years as a student at the
local fighter's guild.  After much practice  and  sweat  you
have finally completed your training and are ready to embark
upon a perilous adventure.  As a test of  your  skills,  the
local  guildmasters have sent you into the Dungeons of Doom.
Your task is to return with  the  Amulet  of  Yendor.   Your
reward  for  the completion of this task will be a full mem-
bership in the local guild.  In addition, you are allowed to
keep all the loot you bring back from the dungeons.

     In  preparation  for  your  journey,  you  are given an
enchanted mace, a bow, and a quiver of arrows taken  from  a
dragon's  hoard in the far off Dark Mountains.  You are also
outfitted with elf-crafted armor and given  enough  food  to
reach  the  dungeons.  You say goodbye to family and friends
for what may be the last time and head up the road.

     You set out on your way to the dungeons and after  sev-
eral  days  of  uneventful travel, you see the ancient ruins
that mark the entrance to the Dungeons of Doom.  It is  late
at  night,  so  you  make camp at the entrance and spend the
____________________
   UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories












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night sleeping under the open skies.   In  the  morning  you
gather  your  weapons, put on your armor, eat what is almost
your last food, and enter the dungeons.

2.  What is going on here?

     You have just begun a game of rogue.  Your goal  is  to
grab as much treasure as you can, find the Amulet of Yendor,
and get out of the Dungeons of Doom alive.  On the screen, a
map  of  where  you  have been and what you have seen on the
current dungeon level is kept.  As you explore more  of  the
level, it appears on the screen in front of you.

     Rogue  differs from most computer fantasy games in that
it  is  screen  oriented.   Commands  are  all  one  or  two
keystrokes1  and  the results of your commands are displayed
graphically on the screen rather  than  being  explained  in
words.2

     Another  major  difference between rogue and other com-
puter fantasy games is that once you  have  solved  all  the
puzzles  in a standard fantasy game, it has lost most of its
excitement and it ceases to be fun.   Rogue,  on  the  other
hand,  generates  a  new  dungeon every time you play it and
even the author finds it an entertaining and exciting  game.

3.  What do all those things on the screen mean?

     In  order  to  understand what is going on in rogue you
have to first get some grasp of what rogue is doing with the
screen.   The  rogue  screen is intended to replace the "You
can see ..." descriptions of standard fantasy games.  Figure
1 is a sample of what a rogue screen might look like.

3.1.  The bottom line

     At  the  bottom  line of the screen are a few pieces of
cryptic information describing your current status.  Here is
an explanation of what these things mean:

Level  This  number  indicates how deep you have gone in the
       dungeon.  It starts at one and  goes  up  as  you  go
       deeper into the dungeon.

Gold   The  number  of  gold pieces you have managed to find
       and keep with you so far.
____________________
   1 As opposed to pseudo English sentences.
   2  A minimum screen size of 24 lines by 80 columns is re-
quired.  If the screen is larger,  only  the  24x80  section
will be used for the map.












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____________________________________________________________


                        ------------
                        |..........+
                        |..@....]..|
                        |....B.....|
                        |..........|
                        -----+------



Level: 1  Gold: 0      Hp: 12(12)  Str: 16(16)  Arm: 4  Exp: 1/0

                          Figure 1
____________________________________________________________


Hp     Your  current  and  maximum  health  points.   Health
       points  indicate  how much damage you can take before
       you die.  The more you get hit in a fight, the  lower
       they  get.   You can regain health points by resting.
       The number in parentheses is the maximum number  your
       health points can reach.

Str    Your  current  strength  and  maximum  ever strength.
       This can be any integer less than or equal to 31,  or
       greater  than or equal to three.  The higher the num-
       ber, the stronger you are.  The number in the  paren-
       theses  is  the maximum strength you have attained so
       far this game.

Arm    Your current armor protection.  This number indicates
       how  effective  your  armor is in stopping blows from
       unfriendly creatures.  The higher this number is, the
       more effective the armor.

Exp    These  two numbers give your current experience level
       and experience points.  As you do  things,  you  gain
       experience   points.   At  certain  experience  point
       totals, you gain an experience level.  The more expe-
       rienced you are, the better you are able to fight and
       to withstand magical attacks.

3.2.  The top line

     The top line of the screen  is  reserved  for  printing
messages  that describe things that are impossible to repre-
sent visually.  If you see a "--More--"  on  the  top  line,
this  means that rogue wants to print another message on the
screen, but it wants to make certain that you have read  the
one  that  is  there  first.  To read the next message, just










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type a space.

3.3.  The rest of the screen

     The rest of the screen is the map of the level  as  you
have  explored  it so far.  Each symbol on the screen repre-
sents something.  Here is a list of what the various symbols
mean:

@    This symbol represents you, the adventurer.

-|   These symbols represent the walls of rooms.

+    A door to/from a room.

.    The floor of a room.

#    The floor of a passage between rooms.

*    A pile or pot of gold.

)    A weapon of some sort.

]    A piece of armor.

!    A flask containing a magic potion.

?    A piece of paper, usually a magic scroll.

=    A ring with magic properties

/    A magical staff or wand

^    A trap, watch out for these.

%    A staircase to other levels

:    A piece of food.

A-Z  The uppercase letters represent the various inhabitants
     of the Dungeons of Doom.  Watch out, they can be  nasty
     and vicious.

4.  Commands

     Commands  are given to rogue by typing one or two char-
acters.  Most commands can be preceded by a count to  repeat
them (e.g. typing "10s" will do ten searches).  Commands for
which counts make no sense have the count ignored.  To  can-
cel  a  count  or a prefix, type <ESCAPE>.  The list of com-
mands is rather long, but it can be read at any time  during
the  game  with the "?"  command.  Here it is for reference,
with a short explanation of each command.










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?    The help command.  Asks for a character  to  give  help
     on.   If you type a "*", it will list all the commands,
     otherwise it will explain what the character you  typed
     does.

/    This  is  the "What is that on the screen?" command.  A
     "/" followed by any  character  that  you  see  on  the
     level,  will  tell  you  what  that  character is.  For
     instance, typing "/@" will tell you that the "@" symbol
     represents you, the player.

h, H, ^H
     Move left.  You move one space to the left.  If you use
     upper case "h", you will continue to  move  left  until
     you  run  into  something.  This works for all movement
     commands (e.g.  "L" means run in direction "l") If  you
     use  the "control" "h", you will continue moving in the
     specified direction until you pass something  interest-
     ing  or  run  into  a wall.  You should experiment with
     this, since it is a very useful command, but very  dif-
     ficult  to  describe.  This also works for all movement
     commands.

j    Move down.

k    Move up.

l    Move right.

y    Move diagonally up and left.

u    Move diagonally up and right.

b    Move diagonally down and left.

n    Move diagonally down and right.

t    Throw an object.  This is a prefix command.  When  fol-
     lowed with a direction it throws an object in the spec-
     ified direction.  (e.g. type "th" to throw something to
     the left.)

f    Fight  until someone dies.  When followed with a direc-
     tion this will force you to fight the creature in  that
     direction until either you or it bites the big one.

m    Move  onto  something without picking it up.  This will
     move you one space in the direction you specify and, if
     there  is  an object there you can pick up, it won't do
     it.

z    Zap prefix.  Point a staff or wand in a given direction
     and  fire  it.   Even  non-directional  staves  must be










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     pointed in some direction to be used.

^    Identify trap command.  If a trap is on  your  map  and
     you  can't  remember what type it is, you can get rogue
     to remind you by getting next to it and typing "^" fol-
     lowed  by  the  direction that would move you on top of
     it.

s    Search for traps and secret doors.  Examine each  space
     immediately adjacent to you for the existence of a trap
     or secret door.  There is a large chance that  even  if
     there  is  something  there,  you won't find it, so you
     might have to search a while before you find something.

>    Climb down a staircase to the next level.  Not surpris-
     ingly, this can only be done if  you  are  standing  on
     staircase.

<    Climb up a staircase to the level above.  This can't be
     done without the Amulet of Yendor in your possession.

.    Rest.  This is the "do nothing" command.  This is  good
     for waiting and healing.

,    Pick up something.  This picks up whatever you are cur-
     rently standing on, if you are standing on anything  at
     all.

i    Inventory.  List what you are carrying in your pack.

I    Selective  inventory.   Tells you what a single item in
     your pack is.

q    Quaff one of the potions you are carrying.

r    Read one of the scrolls in your pack.

e    Eat food from your pack.

w    Wield a weapon.  Take a weapon out  of  your  pack  and
     carry  it  for use in combat, replacing the one you are
     currently using (if any).

W    Wear armor.  You can only wear one suit of armor  at  a
     time.  This takes extra time.

T    Take armor off.  You can't remove armor that is cursed.
     This takes extra time.

P    Put on a ring.  You can wear only two rings at  a  time
     (one  on  each hand).  If you aren't wearing any rings,
     this command will ask you which hand you want  to  wear
     it  on, otherwise, it will place it on the unused hand.










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     The program assumes that you wield your sword  in  your
     right hand.

R    Remove  a ring.  If you are only wearing one ring, this
     command takes it off.  If you are wearing two, it  will
     ask you which one you wish to remove,

d    Drop  an  object.   Take something out of your pack and
     leave it lying on  the  floor.   Only  one  object  can
     occupy  each space.  You cannot drop a cursed object at
     all if you are wielding or wearing it.

c    Call an object something.  If you have a type of object
     in  your  pack  which  you  wish  to remember something
     about, you can use the call command to give a  name  to
     that  type  of  object.   This is usually used when you
     figure out what a potion, scroll,  ring,  or  staff  is
     after  you  pick  it  up,  or when you want to remember
     which of those swords in your pack you were wielding.

D    Print out  which  things  you've  discovered  something
     about.   This  command  will ask you what type of thing
     you are interested in.  If you type the character for a
     given  type  of  object (e.g.  "!"  for potion) it will
     tell you which kinds of that type of object you've dis-
     covered  (i.e.,  figured out what they are).  This com-
     mand works for potions, scrolls, rings, and staves  and
     wands.

o    Examine  and  set  options.   This  command  is further
     explained in the section on options.

^R   Redraws the screen.  Useful  if  spurious  messages  or
     transmission errors have messed up the display.

^P   Print  last  message.  Useful when a message disappears
     before you can read it.  This  only  repeats  the  last
     message  that  was  not  a mistyped command so that you
     don't loose anything by accidentally typing  the  wrong
     character instead of ^P.

<ESCAPE>
     Cancel a command, prefix, or count.

!    Escape to a shell for some commands.

Q    Quit.  Leave the game.

S    Save  the  current  game  in  a  file.  It will ask you
     whether you wish to use the default save file.  Caveat:
     Rogue  won't  let  you start up a copy of a saved game,
     and it removes the save file as soon as you start up  a
     restored game.  This is to prevent people from saving a










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     game just before a dangerous position and then restart-
     ing  it if they die.  To restore a saved game, give the
     file name as an argument to rogue.  As in
               % rogue save_file

     To restart from the default save file (see below), run
               % rogue -r

v    Prints the program version number.

)    Print the weapon you are currently wielding

]    Print the armor you are currently wearing

=    Print the rings you are currently wearing

@    Reprint the status line on the message line

5.  Rooms

     Rooms in the dungeons are either lit or dark.   If  you
walk  into  a lit room, the entire room will be drawn on the
screen as soon as you enter.  If you walk into a dark  room,
it will only be displayed as you explore it.  Upon leaving a
room, all monsters inside  the  room  are  erased  from  the
screen.   In  the darkness you can only see one space in all
directions around you.  A corridor is always dark.

6.  Fighting

     If you see a monster and you wish  to  fight  it,  just
attempt  to run into it.  Many times a monster you find will
mind its own business unless you attack it.  It is often the
case that discretion is the better part of valor.

7.  Objects you can find

     When you find something in the dungeon, it is common to
want to pick the object up.  This is accomplished  in  rogue
by  walking  over the object (unless you use the "m" prefix,
see above).  If you are carrying too many things,  the  pro-
gram  will  tell you and it won't pick up the object, other-
wise it will add it to your pack and tell you what you  just
picked up.

     Many  of  the  commands  that  operate  on objects must
prompt you to find out which object you want to use.  If you
change  your  mind  and  don't want to do that command after
all, just type an <ESCAPE> and the command will be  aborted.

     Some  objects,  like armor and weapons, are easily dif-
ferentiated.  Others, like scrolls and  potions,  are  given
labels which vary according to type.  During a game, any two










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of the same kind of object with the same label are the  same
type.  However, the labels will vary from game to game.

     When  you  use  one  of  these  labeled objects, if its
effect is obvious, rogue will remember what it is  for  you.
If  it's  effect  isn't  extremely obvious you will be asked
what you want to scribble on it so  you  will  recognize  it
later, or you can use the "call" command (see above).

7.1.  Weapons

     Some  weapons,  like  arrows, come in bunches, but most
come one at a time.  In order to  use  a  weapon,  you  must
wield  it.   To  fire  an arrow out of a bow, you must first
wield the bow, then throw the arrow.  You can only wield one
weapon  at  a  time, but you can't change weapons if the one
you are currently wielding is cursed.  The commands  to  use
weapons are "w" (wield) and "t" (throw).

7.2.  Armor

     There  are  various  sorts of armor lying around in the
dungeon.  Some of it is enchanted, some is cursed, and  some
is  just normal.  Different armor types have different armor
protection.  The higher the armor protection, the more  pro-
tection  the  armor  affords  against the blows of monsters.
Here is a list of the various armor types and  their  normal
armor protection:


           +-----------------------------------------+
           |  Type                        Protection |
           |None                                   0 |
           |Leather armor                          2 |
           |Studded leather / Ring mail            3 |
           |Scale mail                             4 |
           |Chain mail                             5 |
           |Banded mail / Splint mail              6 |
           |Plate mail                             7 |
           +-----------------------------------------+


If  a piece of armor is enchanted, its armor protection will
be higher than normal.  If a suit of armor  is  cursed,  its
armor  protection will be lower, and you will not be able to
remove it.  However, not all armor with a protection that is
lower than normal is cursed.

     The  commands  to  use  weapons  are "W" (wear) and "T"
(take off).













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7.3.  Scrolls

     Scrolls come with titles in an unknown tongue3.   After
you  read  a scroll, it disappears from your pack.  The com-
mand to use a scroll is "r" (read).

7.4.  Potions

     Potions are labeled by the color of the  liquid  inside
the flask.  They disappear after being quaffed.  The command
to use a scroll is "q" (quaff).

7.5.  Staves and Wands

     Staves and wands do the same kinds of  things.   Staves
are  identified  by a type of wood; wands by a type of metal
or bone.  They are generally things you want to do to  some-
thing  over  a long distance, so you must point them at what
you wish to  affect  to  use  them.   Some  staves  are  not
affected  by the direction they are pointed, though.  Staves
come with multiple magic charges, the number  being  random,
and when they are used up, the staff is just a piece of wood
or metal.

     The command to use a wand or staff is "z" (zap)

7.6.  Rings

     Rings are very useful items, since they are  relatively
permanent  magic,  unlike  the  usually  fleeting effects of
potions, scrolls, and staves.  Of course, the bad rings  are
also  more  powerful.   Most  rings also cause you to use up
food more rapidly, the rate varying with the type  of  ring.
Rings  are differentiated by their stone settings.  The com-
mands to use rings are "P" (put on) and "R" (remove).

7.7.  Food

     Food is necessary to keep you going.   If  you  go  too
long  without  eating  you will faint, and eventually die of
starvation.  The command to use food is "e" (eat).

8.  Options

     Due to variations in personal tastes and conceptions of
the  way  rogue should do things, there are a set of options
you can set that cause rogue to behave in various  different
____________________
   3 Actually, it's a dialect spoken only by the twenty-sev-
en members of a tribe in Outer Mongolia, but you're not sup-
posed to know that.












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ways.

8.1.  Setting the options

     There  are  two  ways to set the options.  The first is
with the "o" command  of  rogue;  the  second  is  with  the
"ROGUEOPTS" environment variable4.

8.1.1.  Using the `o' command

     When you type "o" in rogue, it clears  the  screen  and
displays  the current settings for all the options.  It then
places the cursor by the value of the first option and waits
for  you to type.  You can type a <RETURN> which means to go
to the next option, a "-" which means to go to the  previous
option,  an  <ESCAPE>  which means to return to the game, or
you can give the option a value.  For boolean  options  this
merely  involves  typing "t" for true or "f" for false.  For
string options, type the new value followed by a <RETURN>.

8.1.2.  Using the ROGUEOPTS variable

     The ROGUEOPTS variable is a string containing  a  comma
separated  list  of  initial values for the various options.
Boolean variables can be turned on by listing their name  or
turned  off by putting a "no" in front of the name.  Thus to
set up an environment variable so that jump is on, terse  is
off, and the name is set to "Blue Meanie", use the command
   % setenv ROGUEOPTS "jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie"5

8.2.  Option list

     Here is a list of the options  and  an  explanation  of
what  each  one  is  for.   The  default  value  for each is
enclosed in square brackets.  For character string  options,
input over fifty characters will be ignored.

terse [noterse]
     Useful for those who are tired of the sometimes lengthy
     messages of rogue.  This is a useful option for playing
     on  slow terminals, so this option defaults to terse if
     you are on a slow (1200 baud or under) terminal.


____________________
   4  On  Version  6  systems, there is no equivalent of the
ROGUEOPTS feature.
   5  For  those of you who use the Bourne shell sh (1), the
commands would be
   $ ROGUEOPTS="jump,noterse,name=Blue Meanie"
   $ export ROGUEOPTS












USD:33-12                    A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom


jump [nojump]
     If this option is set, running moves will not  be  dis-
     played until you reach the end of the move.  This saves
     considerable  cpu  and  display  time.    This   option
     defaults to jump if you are using a slow terminal.

flush [noflush]
     All  typeahead  is thrown away after each round of bat-
     tle.  This is useful for those who type far  ahead  and
     then watch in dismay as a Bat kills them.

seefloor [seefloor]
     Display  the floor around you on the screen as you move
     through dark rooms.  Due to the  amount  of  characters
     generated,  this  option  defaults to noseefloor if you
     are using a slow terminal.

passgo [nopassgo]
     Follow turnings in passageways.  If you run in  a  pas-
     sage  and  you run into stone or a wall, rogue will see
     if it can turn to the right or left.  If  it  can  only
     turn  one  way,  it will turn that way.  If it can turn
     either or neither, it will stop.   This  algorithm  can
     sometimes  lead to slightly confusing occurrences which
     is why it defaults to nopassgo.

tombstone [tombstone]
     Print out the tombstone at the end if you  get  killed.
     This  is  nice  but slow, so you can turn it off if you
     like.

inven [overwrite]
     Inventory type.  This can have  one  of  three  values:
     overwrite,  slow,  or  clear.   With  overwrite the top
     lines of the map are overwritten  with  the  list  when
     inventory  is requested or when "Which item do you wish
     to . . .? " questions are answered with  a  "*".   How-
     ever,  if  the  list  is  longer  than a screenful, the
     screen is cleared.  With slow, lists are displayed  one
     item  at  a  time  on  the  top of the screen, and with
     clear, the screen is cleared, the  list  is  displayed,
     and  then  the  dungeon  level is re-displayed.  Due to
     speed considerations, clear is the default  for  termi-
     nals without clear-to-end-of-line capabilities.

name [account name]
     This  is the name of your character.  It is used if you
     get on the top ten scorer's list.

fruit [slime-mold]
     This should hold the name of a  fruit  that  you  enjoy
     eating.  It is basically a whimsey that rogue uses in a
     couple of places.










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file [~/rogue.save]
     The default file name for saving  the  game.   If  your
     phone  is hung up by accident, rogue will automatically
     save the game in this file.  The file  name  may  start
     with the special character "~" which expands to be your
     home directory.

9.  Scoring

     Rogue usually maintains a list of the top scoring  peo-
ple  or  scores on your machine.  Depending on how it is set
up, it can post either the top scores or  the  top  players.
In  the  latter  case,  each account on the machine can post
only one non-winning score  on  this  list.   If  you  score
higher than someone else on this list, or better your previ-
ous score on the list, you will be inserted  in  the  proper
place under your current name.  How many scores are kept can
also be set up by whoever installs it on your machine.

     If you quit the game, you get out with all of your gold
intact.   If,  however,  you  get  killed in the Dungeons of
Doom, your body is forwarded to your next-of-kin, along with
90%  of  your  gold; ten percent of your gold is kept by the
Dungeons'  wizard  as a fee6.  This should make you consider
whether you want to take one last hit at  that  monster  and
possibly live, or quit and thus stop with whatever you have.
If you quit, you do get all your gold, but if you swing  and
live, you might find more.

     If  you  just  want  to  see what the current top play-
ers/games list is, you can type
          % @PROGRAM@ -s

10.  Acknowledgements

     Rogue was originally conceived of by Glenn Wichman  and
Michael  Toy.   Ken Arnold and Michael Toy then smoothed out
the user interface, and added jillions of new features.   We
would  like  to  thank  Bob  Arnold,  Michelle  Busch,  Andy
Hatcher, Kipp Hickman, Mark Horton, Daniel Jensen, Bill Joy,
Joe  Kalash,  Steve  Maurer,  Marty  McNary, Jan Miller, and
Scott Nelson for their ideas and assistance;  and  also  the
teeming  multitudes who graciously ignored work, school, and
social life to play rogue and send us bugs, complaints, sug-
gestions, and just plain flames.  And also Mom.



____________________
   6 The Dungeon's wizard is named Wally the Wonder  Badger.
Invocations should be accompanied by a sizable donation.








