Rogue

Version 3.6 — Epyx / Toy & Wichman, 1981

The original dungeon crawler. No two games are alike.
Descend into the Dungeons of Doom. Retrieve the Amulet of Yendor. Try not to die.

You’re already in your terminal, waiting for an LLM to finish thinking.
You have time. The dungeon is right here.

Connect now telnet rogue.irolltwenties.com

or via SSH ssh rogue@rogue.irolltwenties.com -p 2222

password: rogue

--------------------- |.................*.| |..@..........H....+########### |..........!........| # ---------+-----+---- # # ------+------ ######## |...........| # |..........>| ---------+--- |...........| |...........# ------------- |...........| |...........| ------------- Level: 5 Hits: 38(38) Str: 16(16) Gold: 102 Armor: 5 Exp: 5/62

What is Rogue?

Rogue is the 1980 game that invented the roguelike genre. You are an adventurer descending through a procedurally generated dungeon, fighting monsters, collecting treasure, and managing scarce resources. Every game generates a new dungeon. When you die, you're dead. There is no save-scumming. There is no mercy.

This server runs the authentic Rogue 3.6 binary — the version that shipped with BSD Unix.

How to Connect

Open your terminal — the one you’re already sitting in — and type:

telnet rogue.irolltwenties.com

On macOS, telnet is built in. On Linux, install it from your package manager (apt install telnet, etc). On Windows, enable the Telnet Client in Windows Features, or use PuTTY.

Or connect via SSH:

ssh rogue@rogue.irolltwenties.com -p 2222

password: rogue

Tip: Make sure your terminal window is at least 80×24 characters. Rogue was designed for the VT100.

Pro tip: Alias it. Add this to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:
alias rogue='telnet rogue.irolltwenties.com' Then just type rogue whenever the LLM is thinking.

The Dungeon

Everything on screen means something. Learn to read the map:

@	You. The hero. Possibly doomed.
.	Floor — safe to walk on
#	Passageway between rooms
+	Door
-	Horizontal wall
\|	Vertical wall
%	Staircase — go down with `>`
*	Gold
^	Trap (visible only after triggered or found)
)	Weapon
]	Armor
!	Potion
?	Scroll
/	Wand or staff
=	Ring
:	Food
,	The Amulet of Yendor
A–Z	Monsters (see bestiary below)

Movement

Move with the classic vi keys. Hold Shift to run until something interesting happens.

        y  k  u
         \ | /
      h ── @ ── l
         / | \
        b  j  n

Commands

Action
`.`	Rest one turn
`s`	Search for traps & secret doors
`>`	Go down stairs
`<`	Go up stairs
`f`	Fight till someone drops (prefix to dir)
`t`	Throw something (then direction)
`z`	Zap a wand (then direction)

Inventory
`i`	Show inventory
`e`	Eat food
`q`	Quaff a potion
`r`	Read a scroll
`w`	Wield a weapon
`W`	Wear armor
`T`	Take off armor
`P`	Put on a ring
`R`	Remove a ring
`d`	Drop something

Other Useful Keys

`?`	Help
`/`	Identify a symbol on screen
`c`	Call (name) an object
`D`	Discovered items list
`^R`	Redraw screen
`S`	Save and quit
`Q`	Quit (abandon game)
`v`	Version number

Bestiary

Twenty-six creatures lurk below, one for each letter of the alphabet. They get worse as you go deeper.

A Aquator — rusts your armor

B Bat — erratic movement

C Centaur

D Dragon — breathes fire

E Emu

F Venus Flytrap — holds you

G Griffin

H Hobgoblin

I Ice Monster — freezes you

J Jabberwock

K Kestrel

L Leprechaun — steals gold

M Medusa — confuses you

N Nymph — steals items

O Orc

P Phantom — invisible

Q Quagga

R Rattlesnake — drains strength

S Snake

T Troll — regenerates

U Ur-vile

V Vampire — drains max HP

W Wraith — drains levels

X Xeroc — imitates items

Y Yeti

Z Zombie

Survival Guide

Identify by use. Potions, scrolls, wands, and rings are randomized each game. A “blue potion” might heal you or it might poison you. The only way to learn is to try — or read a scroll of identify.

Food is the clock. You will starve if you linger too long. Don't explore exhaustively on early levels. Keep moving down.

Search walls. Press s multiple times near walls to find secret doors. If a room only has one exit, search the walls.

Use hallways. Fighting in corridors means monsters can only come at you one at a time.

Armor matters. Your armor class is everything in the early game. Don't swap ring mail for leather.

The Amulet is on level 26+. Once you have it, you must climb all the way back up and exit level 1 to win. Nobody said it would be easy.

You will die. A lot. That's the point. Every death teaches you something. The high score list is a graveyard.

History

Rogue was created by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman at UC Santa Cruz around 1980, with later contributions from Ken Arnold. It was distributed with 4.2BSD Unix and became one of the most-played programs on university Unix systems in the early 1980s.

Its core innovation—procedural generation combined with permanent death—launched an entire genre. NetHack, Angband, Spelunky, Hades, and hundreds of others trace their lineage directly to this 80×24 terminal game.