Command letters: > go downstairs: must be on stairs '%' < go upstairs: must have amulet of Funidoog ',' and be on stairs . rest a while i inventory: list all items being carried e eat some food s search for traps & secret doors c call an item something d drop an item q quaff a potion r read a scroll z zap a wand p point a wand in a particular direction w weild a weapon t throw a weapon in a particular direction (see weapons below) W wear a suit of armour Q quit the game S save the game for later P put on a ring R remove a ring ^R reprint the last message ^L redraw the screen h move one position left j move down k move up l move right y move up & left u move up & right b move down & left n move down & right H, J, K, L, Y, U, B, N run in the given direction till something is found certain commands can be done repeatedly, e.g. 10l will move 10 spaces right, or 5s will search five times, the maximum repetition count is 255 (guess who's using a byte counter!!) - command letters don't get echoed, as the effect they have usually shows up in some other way. Things on screen: solid rock (empty space) . room interior - | room walls + door # corridor ^ trap % stairs ? scroll ! potion / wand = ring ) weapon ] armour * gold : food , the Amulet of Funidoog A-Z monsters - A giant ant B bat C centaur D dragon E floating eye F violet fungus G giant H hobgoblin I invisible stalker (if you can see them) J jackal K kobold L leprachaun M mimic (when it's not pretending to be something else) N nymph O orc P purple worm Q quasit R rust monster S skeleton T troll U umber hulk V vampire W wraith X xorn Y yeti Z zombie Anything that can be picked up (scrolls et. seq.) gets picked up when moved on top of, to fight a monster, either point a wand at it, throw a weapon at it, or to fight it hand to hand, attempt to move on top of it. Weapons fall into four classes: 1. two handed sword, long sword, mace: these are best weilded when going into hand to hand combat; 2. short bow, crossbow, sling: these are best weilded when class 3 weapons are to be thrown; 3. arrow, crossbow bolt, rock: these are best thrown at monsters some distance away, best results will be obtained if the approprate class 2 weapon is weilded when throwing class 3 weapons; 4. spear, dagger, dart: these are best thrown as class 3, however no special weapon need be weilded to throw these. When throwing a weapon or pointing a wand, the direction should be specified as for moving, so to point a wand to the left type in 'ph', and give the letter from the inventory when asked what to zap, similarly to throw something down, type 'tj', and the inventory letter, etc. etc. etc. The general idea of the game is to find the Amulet of Funidoog, which will be found somewhere below level 20, and escape from the dungeon with it: once it has been picked up, the '<' command to go upstairs works. This game has it's roots in AD&D (The T.S.R. fantasy role playing game), but intimate knowledge of AD&D is not necessary to play Rogue (though it can be a help). Rogue was originally written in C, and released on Berkley UNIX systems - the only major part missing is the wizards password (which is a massive cheat anyway). By and large, damages that monsters do, armour classes of monsters, probabilities of hitting in combat, and other such variables are lifted directly from AD&D, as they were for the Berkley version. A few (hopefully helpful) comments: use the rest command copiously - it allows you to regain hit points lost in combat; traps generally only show up when you stand on them, unless you are searching - on the subject of searching, don't get too depressed if you seem to have explored everywhere and you can't find the stairs: search along the walls of the rooms you have found ('s' command, do it typically 10 times for each '-' or '|' in the wall). Note also that some of the monsters get very vicious: dragons can breath on you, rust monsters weaken metal armour, leprachauns will steal your gold, invisible stalkers are just that (invisible), mimics tend to look like other things: scrolls, armour, stairs - anything that isn't a monster, etc, etc, etc; there are cursed items (rings, armour, weapons) which can be quite hard to get rid of - unless you have a scroll of remove curse... Regarding the various weapons: Two handed swords are the best weapons in class 1 The crossbow is the best in classes 2/3, and the spear is the best in class 4. Regarding armour class: the lower it is, the better for you. Regarding your strength / hit points / experience / gold: the higher the better (There must be some reason why armour class works backwards...). Logically (?) the monsters get harder to kill the deeper you get into the dungeon - Dragons & Purple worms (probably the meanest pair in the game) are often best left alone if you find them asleep, because it isn't worth taking a chance on getting bumped off by one of them: by the time you meet those two monsters you'll be pretty close to the amulet, and once you have it, the best thing to do is to high tail it back up through the dungeon to about level 17. On the other hand DON'T rush down: explore each level to find all the magic and monsters you can: killing monsters is how you get experience, and the more experience you have, the better you'll do in a fight; in addition a good arsenal of magic items can make the difference between winning & losing a fight. On the lower levels rooms become dark: this limits your area of vision as shown by the area of '.'s around you, however there are wands & scrolls which can alleviate this problem (to a point at least). I'll leave it for you to find out what all the scrolls, rings, etc do, to begin with you'll be using all the scrolls of identify as soon as they get found. Note that potion colours (and wand metals and ring gems) change from game to game, so don't assume that just because a potion of healing is orange in this game, it will be orange in the next (that would be too easy!!). Patching for different terminals. As delivered, this runs on Televideo compatible terminals (including Liberty Freedom, ADM31, Wyse 50, Wyse 60, and Commodore 128 in CP/M mode). Two special abilities must be present, clear screen and move cursor; and clear to end of line will be used if it exists, however ROGUE knows how to get by without it. The patch area is right at the start of the program. Since most of the patchable stuff I write is designed to use the same patch overlay there is a lot of patching possible that is not applicable to ROGUE. However, once you have the 1/2 K patch overlay it becomes trivial to patch new programs to work for you. Included is a file QTERM.PAT which goes into detail on how to do the patching. It should be noted that ROGUE.COM is not the same size as QTERM.COM: the value for the SAVE command will be: SAVE 89 ROGUENEW.COM In all other respects, QTERM.PAT explains how to patch ROGUE for your system.