A brief evolution of Rogue. Thousands of sites exist on the topic, so I won’t go into a lot of repeat here, but I thought you might enjoy a quick gaming history lesson.

Tolkein (Lord of the Rings and many other books), inspired the game Moria. Zeb, Cook, and Gygax, creators of Dungeons & Dragons, inspired the game Rogue. Tolkein, from Europe, and Gygax (mainly credited for D&D), from America, detested one another.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon is based upon Pixel Dungeon. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shatteredpixel.shatteredpixeldungeon

Pixel Dungeon is based upon BRogue.

https://pixel-dungeon.en.uptodown.com/android

BRogue is based on Angband. https://github.com/bilgincoskun/brogue-android-port/releases/

Angband is based on Moria and Larn and Nethack. Moria is Tolkein’s world, Nethack is D&D’ish, and Larn took a whole different theme. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.rephial.xyangband

This version includes several Roguelikes in one, including Sil-Q, the Android port of Moria.

The Android port of Larn (dLarn) is available at - https://download.appsonwindows.com/b/dLarn_free-v3.3-appsonwindows.com.apk?a=azJIZDl2QyttREIxend4L0tyblQwdz09&b=ZmlJL1paUmowSkdDY25XVy9SbGRlTDdreDhhWFc5WWk5NWJORXNrSWN5L1hOamFkWUZsZ21UVVVhSDlwWWtPa2hiT0VIZmQrQ2drTHZoSXJlZ3p4cjNnVlhvWDFSNnNocU1qM0xwcEVKcFk9&c=VkZzUkZ5QjlwQmxrOFJmSWNqR1EvZ3A5MDlSN3I3ZHk4WDFTZ1ZEVnFmQT0&d=4bf63e00

Moria is based on Rogue. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.rufe.moria

“Roguelike Classic” is the only APK I know to include direct ports of Moria, Larn, and Rogue to Android. Sadly, it uses .SO libraries that are no longer supported since Android 11. Mines of Moria does not hold very true to the original Dungeons of Moria. uMoria is not available for Android. Finally, I found Sil. This is an Android port of Moria that holds very true to Tolkein’s work, but it is for x86 hardware only. Fortunately, Sil was redone as Sil-Q (silk), and is included in the above Angband apk.

The original UNIX version of Rogue (1978-1980) will not run on modern devices, and the only 2 known Android ports of the 1984-1985 DOS version stopped working at Android 11. The DOS version can be run in an emulator such as MagicDOSBox on Android. The versions up to 1984 were primarily text based, or, if one had a computer powerful enough they could select an ANSI or ASCII sudo graphics mode. It can also be played online. One must register an account before playing. https://rlgallery.org:8080/

A modern Android port can be found in Dungeon Crawl. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crawlmb&hl=en

In 2015, one of the largest roundups of Roguelikes took place and more than 700 versions were archived. https://archive.org/details/RoguelikeMegaCollection2015

The anual 7 Day Roguelike Challenge adds about 10 new games each year.

About the same time, Pixel Dungeon was bursting onto the scene for Android and not even mentioned in that archive at the time.

A decade later, and there is now well over 300 version’s of Pixel Dungeon! That makes for over a thousand roguelikes.

Dial-up Multi User Dungeon’s (MUD’s), network roguelikes such as Diablo, and MMORPG’s such as World of Warcraft are also evolution’s of the original Rogue.

*Edit

Although Nethack wasn’t a part of PD, it has been a major influence on all Roguelikes. As I mentioned it, I am posting the Android version.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tbd.NetHack

  • [DEV] SnailOP
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    10 months ago

    Another worthy mention is Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM for short). This Rogue-like is attributed with what today is called 2.5D graphics. That is, not flat 2 dimension tiles, but also not quite full 3 dimensional objects. Instead, flat graphic tiles are displayed in a way to give the impression of 3D. This allows for smaller file sizes while also making animation possible.

    This is the same process used by Pixel Dungeon.

    Too, according to the website, ADOM is the first Roguelike to add quest’s. That is something else Pixel Dungeon shares with classic RL’s.

    ADOM was made for LINUX, ported to DOS/Mac/Amiga, eventually and primarily to Windows, but never for Android.

    The official ADOM homepage is - https://www.adom.de/home/index.html

    It is now available on Steam and GOG, at a price.

    ADOM for DOS can be run via MagicDOSBox on Android, but it is a very old version.

    Desktop Dungeon is the closest alternative to ADOM I have found for Android.

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.QCFDesign.DesktopDungeonsMobile

    *EDIT

    Again, frustrated with not finding an ADOM for Android, I did some investigating and have discovered that the main reason most Roguelike are not ported to Android has to do with the CURSES library. This is the code that selects where an object will be located on the screen. It was designed for CRT technology and is incompatible with modern flatscreen XY technologies.

    So, once again, I went back to modifying a DOSBox. Stripped down, ambiv7 (no x86 support), removed a bunch of stuff not needed, and reduced it from 52Mb to 15Mb. Easier install than its Win3x counterpart. Install, select the folder you want to place your games, use the same folder for the configuration files, and once running, click on the orange + button to add a game. Enter the name Ancient Domains of Myster, scroll down and select the exe, ADOM.EXE, and it is set. Click the new icon and enjoy ADOM on Android.

    https://filetransfer.io/data-package/rtJOVHyt#link

    Note: This is the classic ASCII version, the latest as of this post. The tile based version is over half a Gb and won’t run smoothly under any emulation I’ve tested thus far.