Packed with spurting blood, torn out hearts, and a whole mess of ambiguity, Aaron Steed and Nathan Gallardo's deliberately mystifying Red Rogue is a old-school styled roguelike you can play like an action RPG or in ye olde turn-based style. Either way, don't expect a whole lot of exposition as the game unceremoniously punts you, the titular rogue and her silent minion, into the Chaos Dungeons packed with kobolds, trolls, traps, bats, and much, much more standing in your way as you search for the Amulet of Yendor. What is this place? Who are you? Why are you so good at decapitating things and making other things explode into squishy chunks? Well, that's for the game to know and you to find out, my bloodthirsty little friend, so make sure you explore everywhere, read every bit of wall scribbles, and experiment with everything.
Move with the [WASD] or [arrow] keys, hit up to get items, down to go through doors or drop through ledges, and [spacebar] to open your in-game menu. From there, you can equip or enchant items for both you and your minion, sleep to regain health, search for or disarm traps, chow down hearts, and view any information you've gathered. Attacking is as simple as walking into an enemy, and your minion will move and fight on his own. The big bar in the bottom left corner represents your health, while the three smaller ones beside it are (in descending order) your minion's health, your experience to level up, and your action timer. Don't get too cocky, since death is permanent, and the layout of every level is different not only on every playthrough, but whenever you go up or down stairs... even to a place you've already cleared. Survival depends not only on learning the unspoken tricks of the game, like falling on an enemy to temporarily stun them, but also in figuring out how best to use the runes you find. And, uh. How to make... faces, and what the effects of equipping each one are. Aside from, you know. Nightmares about wearing faces.
If you don't like trial-and-error, you're not going to like Red Rogue, since the game doesn't so much avoid hand-holding as it does shove you down and take your lunch money for even suggesting it. A big part of the game's appeal if just how much you have to figure out on your own, and once you start doing so, it's really surprising just how much story there is, and how much more complex the game can be from its simple presentation. You just have to be willing to get your nose bloodied a bit in the process. If that sounds too frustrating to you and you already don't like roguelikes, Red Rogue might not exactly fill you with the warm fuzzies. For the rest of us who enjoy a good creepy dungeon crawl with tons of secrets, splatters, and one seriously stellar soundtrack, Red Rogue is a great date for an afternoon.
Windows:
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Mac OS X:
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Linux:
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Thanks to Kh for sending this one in!
It should be noted that if the Amulet of Yendor and some of the in-game elements bring back Rogue, Hack, or Nethack memories, that's no coincidence. According to the developer, this is an unofficial sequel to Rogue.
...Great game! I'm stuck at the beginning. Specifically the title screen. Says to press menu key (spc), to begin, but I have zero idea what that means. Derp.
Hi jrodriguez. :) The game is telling you to press the spacebar.
I been playing this game like crazy and enjoying it a lot. One of my permanent games for my desktop.
Tips
-Try going up the stairs and go right to see a grind stone. This will level you up but during a quickening (the lighting you get when you level up) hold the right arrow to reach a chest. Normally it will have a powerful weapon that you shouldn't be able to get though it will only be level 1.
-Quickening as stated before is something you get during a level up, while you are not only fully healed you also be dealing damage with the lighting effect that you get from it.
-Level matters. Your character, your skeleton pal, your armor and your weapon still be about the same level as the dungeon floor that you are currently on.
-Read the red stuff on the walls, they are tips written by @ himself. Some are more useful then you think and list tips that easily outdo anything I will write here.
-Your minion is a skeleton though a face can change you and him. Some are useful while others are not so much. Try to keep him alive but if he dies then don't worry about it. Killing a boss may let the underworld allow him to escape death.
-The underworld and overworld are not effected by the randomization so feel free to drop your 2nd best items in case you die. Better then starting over with nothing.
-Use runes on items you don't really care about. Once you learn what they can do you may want to use them on equipment and not on yourself to have the effects more permanent. Heal on armor and Bleed on weapon is good but not so much the other way around.
-You or your minion turned into a werewolf? Maybe you ate an undead rune (which basically act like an extra life by the way) and died to become a skeleton? Overworld (and underworld I believe) automatically remove any faces but as a bonus also remove any alt forms.
-Shooting with a bow for example can be done with some weapons. Just hit the F key. Throwing weapons is slightly more annoying as you have to pick them up after each throw though it may save your life if you have a pile of knifes and is a pit away from the monster.
-Jumping isn't possible until you get the amulet. It become useless by the time you get it.
-Try to land on enemies head as it will either stun them or smite them. On that note try to sleep in areas where monsters can't fall on you.
-Sleeping not only heal you but also your minion.
-You always start at the top of the floor, the door to the next floor is always on the bottom. If you working your way back up then you want the door up top otherwise you should be going down.
-Hidden walls are the only good thing you can find by searching. Everything on the ground is a trap, some worst then others so if there a red line on the ground after searching then stand next to it and push X to disable the trap.
-There only about 10 runes and most of which are good assuming you use them correctly. There is a Chaos rune though and throughout the game you will just see it as an unknown rune. This rune can have any effect and generally the wild card that you should throw away on an useless weapon. You also could just collect them and use it as your trump card and hope for the best when the time comes. Once you use a rune you will know what all of the others are (this rule don't apply to the Chaos rune). Often you will get light runes on level 1 and work your way up to the better ones. So go ahead and waste an unknown rune when you start and if it is light then you already knock out one thing the other runes could be.
-May be a glitch or an oversight but xp runes can't be used to enchant equipped items, eating one will give an automatic level while using it on an item won't do anything (as far as I can tell) and with the max level being 20 each rune shouldn't be wasted.
Spoilers and Secrets:
-The bad ending is when you take the amulet out without saving @.
-The good ending is achieved when you give Death the amulet to revive @.
-Worst possible ending is if you or your minion put on the endgame boss face. There is a massive warning so there is no excuse.
-The Konami Code is supported though it really shouldn't be used.
Story Spoiler
-If you couldn't tell the skeleton is your husband who is also @. The girl is Red and basically immortal. The endings (all but the Worst possible ending by wearing the boss face noted above) are connected in any order you wish as regardless the girl is on a permanent loop. Even death can be counted as an ending. She have the Time Rune inside of her. For the full story you need to read all of the messages that @ wrote and sleep quite a lot. If you don't understand the story now you will slowly start to get it as you play the game. The amulet is given to Death to revive @. Leaving without doing that is missing the point of the game.
Game Breaking Cheat:
If you still can not complete the game with the above tips or secrets and planning to give up then read but otherwise this will just ruin your gaming experience. Do not read this at all until you are done playing.
Last warning, this will ruin your gaming experience without a doubt. This is worst then looking at the source code or getting the best weapon at the start. You really shouldn't look at this unless you aren't planning to finish this game legit.
Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter all at the same time to unlock a debug mode. You can't say I didn't warn you. Only put it here as people may enjoy the feature and learn how everything works.
Yikes. I hit a pretty nasty bug. When my menu was navigated to a quest, and I completed it, it permanently froze up the menu. Basically forced me to restart entirely.
Will be working on patch 1.0.3 for all the bugs soon. The game is pretty big and random, so these things were extremely hard to find prior to release.
There's an FAQ on redrogue.net on the best way to send in bug reports. Thanks in advance, and thanks for playing.
Opps forgot something but really isn't much of a tip as it is advice. Ignore the spiders and rats. They are just to make the game prettier. They don't count as enemies and give no exp.
Wow. I nearly face-palmed. Thanks so much Dora, never would have figured that out on my own, haha!
What do the cursed weapons/armours mean?
Is it just that you can't unequip them?
Also, the highest level I get to before I died was lvl 6 -.-
it's kinda hard but also fun :P
Hey, Jay!
The author have released version 1.0.3. Could you please update the file at jayisgames?
[Updated! :) Thanks for the note. -Jay]
Changed my rating from four to five stars after I looked at the clock and realized how much time I'd fed to this game.
That said I'm having some trouble with cursed items too.
I played one run through, and it's pretty cool! I've played Nethack, and I love how the character is the "Widow of @."
I wonder how long one play through is? 4 hours?
Update