Source · Primary · memoir

A Brief History of "Rogue"

Wichman, Glenn R. 1997. “A Brief History of "Rogue".”

Cite as
Wichman, A Brief History of Rogue
Original
http://www.wichman.org/roguehistory.html
sha256
afe492abac3799fa89d2ee08215f748dc548fc1cf6804c0f5c8d571abb742029
Archived
https://web.archive.org/web/20080612193401id_/http://www.wichman.org:80/roguehistory.html
Accessed
2026-10-27
Licence
© 1997 Glenn R. Wichman
Credit
Glenn R. Wichman, one of Rogue's authors, on his own site.
Notes
Wichman's account of Rogue's making, from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, BSD 4.2, A.I. Design, and Epyx. He says his memory is imperfect and that the others might tell the story differently. The site later lapsed to a parked domain; the 2008 capture is pinned.

Cited on

Claims (4)

Glenn Wichman writes that he and Michael Toy, students in Santa Cruz, took up the curses cursor-addressing library that Ken Arnold had put together at Berkeley, to make a "graphical" adventure game; Toy did most of the programming of the original version, the ideas came from both, and the name Rogue was Wichman's.paragraph beginning "Around this time at U.C.Berkeley"paragraph beginning "As this package began to make the rounds"paragraph beginning "As this package began to make the rounds"paragraph beginning "As this package began to make the rounds"paragraph beginning "As this package began to make the rounds"Memoir
Wichman writes that, unlike the canned adventures of the time, Rogue was to build its own dungeon, a new adventure every game that could surprise even its creators, and he counts this the game's biggest contribution.paragraph beginning "One of the things we wanted to do"paragraph beginning "But I think Rogue's biggest contribution"Memoir
Wichman writes that Toy, with a playable game, transferred to Berkeley and met Ken Arnold, who took over development with him; that version 4.2 of BSD UNIX included Rogue, which put it on university computers all over the world; and that over the next three years it became the most popular game on college campuses.paragraph beginning "We had a playable game"paragraph beginning "We had a playable game"paragraph beginning "Rogue's move to Berkeley"paragraph beginning "Rogue's move to Berkeley"Memoir
Wichman writes that Toy and Jon Lane founded A.I. Design, ported Rogue to the IBM PC, and sold it themselves for a while; that after a Macintosh version was begun, Epyx took over its marketing and packaging; and that Toy wrote an Amiga version and Wichman an Atari ST one, but that commercial success eluded them.paragraph beginning "Soon, Michael & I each left school"paragraph beginning "Soon, Michael & I each left school"paragraph beginning "Michael Toy was one of the very first"paragraph beginning "Once Epyx was involved"paragraph beginning "Once Epyx was involved"Memoir