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
January 2024
What started out as a brief history on the evolution of Rogue into Pixel Dungeon left me somewhat annoyed that several games (particularly Rogue itself) are no longer available on Android. Several years ago an app called “Angband Classic” brought Rogue to Android, but ever since the changes in v11, most of those apps no longer work. There are a few other later Rogue-likes that I also wanted from Windows 3.x. Years ago I compiled a version of DOSBox for WinXP that was designed specifically for running Win3x and included over 3,000 games and utilities, but that doesn’t run on Android. And thus my quest led me to recreating an Android build of DOSBox. WinBox for Android is a stripped down and modified DOSBox v0.75 with a similarly stripped down and modified Win3x. Special driver’s, DOS components removed, this app and data run Win3x on my Samsung Galaxy running Android 13. Now, it isn’t a straight forward install, but the setup isn’t that difficult either.
Unzip the archive. (I assume you did if you are reading this message.)
Install “DBTurbo v220 for Win3x_mod.apk” Run it. By default it wants to put everything into DOWNLOADS. Press the 3 dots, select Settings, and the first menu option of Configure DOSBox setting’s. Scroll all the way down. Select MANUAL mode. Change the location of where you intend to store your Win3x folder. (See images 1 and 2 if unclear). Exit the app.
Move the Win3x folder to where ever you want it, just make sure that the location matches the configuration.
In the Win3x folder is “dosbox.conf” Open it with any text editor. Scroll all the way down and look for MOUNT Change the info to match the location of the folder. (See image 3 if needed.) Save
Start the app back up and you should quickly see Win3x with several installed game’s. (See image 4) Rogue - the original game that started all Rogue-likes! Exile 1, 2, 3 - Some of the earliest tile based FRPG’s ever, you may see some similarities to the infamous Android game, Andor’s Trail. Rogue’s Quest - Another very early tile based roguelike. It also includes a dungeon editor. This is not a procedurally generated random dungeon however. This falls between a true Rogue-like and a something like Andor. (When I do the cave quests in Andor, it reminds me of this game.)
And so, we now have Rogue (and a few extra’s) running on Android again.
Yes, you can add additional game’s. Extended graphic support for 800x600x16K, Win32 bit extensions, and bluetooth keyboard and joystick are included. Touch screen works too. However, as this is a stripped down and tweaked build, it will not run DOS game’s, nor will most 32bit programs work.
Snail
https://filetransfer.io/data-package/PAdz3IC7#link 75Mb