Brogue is a free and open-source roguelike computer video game created by Brian Walker. As in its predecessor Rogue, the goal of Brogue is for the player (represented by the character @) to descend to the 26th floor of the Dungeons of Doom, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, and return to the surface. Players also have the option of delving deeper into the dungeon to obtain a higher score. This task is complicated by the presence of monsters and traps in a procedurally generated dungeon.

Brogue
Title screen
Designer(s)Brian Walker
Platform(s)Windows, OS X, Linux
Genre(s)Roguelike
Mode(s)Single-player
ASCII graphics are used to illustrate Brogue.

Development started in 2009,[1] with the latest version, 1.7.5, being released on September 25, 2018.[2] Brogue's interface, design and character graphics have been praised for their simplicity and beauty.[3][4][1][5]

Further development of Brogue has taken place via GitHub under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0, now named Brogue Community Edition or Brogue CE, with multiple contributors.[2][6] As of October 2024, the latest version of Brogue CE is 1.14.1, released on Aug. 31.[7]

Reception

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IndieGames.com's Cassandra Khaw called Brogue "beautiful and accessible."[4] PC Gamer's Graham Smith compared it favorably with The Binding of Isaac, Dungeons of Dredmor and Spelunky; saying "[i]f [...] you want to start swimming to the deeper end of the pool [of roguelikes], Brogue is your waterwings".[8] Rock Paper Shotgun's Graham Smith ranked the interface alongside Papers, Please, Democracy 3, and Elite: Dangerous, citing "using old-fashioned ASCII [...] with a set of effects that make the world colourful and alive".[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b Yu, Derek. "Brogue". Retrieved April 4, 2015.
  2. ^ a b Walker, Brian. "Brogue". Brogue homepage. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
  3. ^ Smith, Graham (15 Nov 2016). "Four Examples Of Excellent Interface Design". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  4. ^ a b Shaw, Cassandra. "Freeware Game Pick: Brogue (Brian Walker)". Archived from the original on April 20, 2015. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
  5. ^ a b Smith, Graham (23 January 2015). "Have You Played… Brogue?". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved April 4, 2015.
  6. ^ Mewett, Tom. "Brogue CE Homepage". GitHub.
  7. ^ Mewett, Tom. "Downloads". Brogue CE Download page.
  8. ^ Smith, Graham (2012-03-10). "Why I Love: drinking potions and befriending monkeys in free roguelike Brogue". PC Gamer. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
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