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Last update November 18,2005

By Glen VanDenBiggelaar

I have a Box of floppy disks that I have no Idea what they are! So I will be posting my reviews here and screen shots if I can get them .

Today, I will look at the game "Rouge" by Epyx games. Expyx games (pronounced "EPIC") was a major third party game maker for the CoCo, making such CoCo games as Pitstop II, Rescue on Fractus, The Keys of Acheron, Koronis Rift, and more. Epyx had such a great "rise and fall" history and ultimately was forced into bankruptcy by Jack Tramiel and Atari.

ROGUE
I had wanted to find out what this game was for a long time. I had heard of "rumors" of this game back in the 80's, but never saw it. A lot of "D & D" guys referred to this game, and it was a cult hit on Unix systems- I guess that is why it runs under OS-9 level 2. I had tried to find this game on the many "CoCo Games sites", but very little info exists-In fact if you do a google search for it, only a hand full of sites come up.
I was " going in blind"and I loaded it up. At first I was a bit disappointed. It turned the screen black with gold letters, and the title screen came up.

Not much to go on, but I did go forward. and started out. At first you will see the game is all in ASCI characters and in no way shows off the capability's of the CoCo 3, but I started to play and figure it out with no manual. I was quite suprised on how fun this game is with no graphics, very easy to learn, and very challenging. The screen is nothing to look at and joysticks are not needed.

The following is a brief history of the game:
The basic premise in Rogue is that the player assumes the role of an adventurer typical of fantasy games such as Dungeons & Dragons . The player starts out at the top level of a massive dungeon, filled with a myriad of monsters and treasure . The goal is to fight one's way down to the bottom of the dungeon, retrieve the Amulet of Yendor , and make it back to the top. Until the amulet is retrieved, the player cannot go back up stairs which he/she has taken down. Unlike most contemporary adventure games when it was written, however, the dungeon and everything in it is randomly -generated, yielding a different game each time it's played.
In the original version, all the aspects of the dungeon, including the character and the monsters are represented by letters and symbols, making the game appropriate to play on a dumb terminal . Later ports of the game allowed replacing the characters with graphical tiles , but the gameplay remained the same. The basic movement keys ( h , up; j , down; k , left; and l , right) are the same as the cursor control keys in the vi editor (see also HJKL keys ). Other game actions also used a single keystroke- q to quaff a potion , w to wield a weapon , e to eat some food , etc.

If you haven't tried this game, and love such classics a "Dungeons of Dagorath", it is defiantly worth a try:

Ratings (out of 5)
Graphics (1)
Gameplay (4)
Easy of understanding (4)
Fun factor (4.5)

overall 4 out of five

Bouncing Baby Boys
Author: Bruce Tate
Company: Cload Inc. 1983

Ok, you never know what you will run across when you go through a box of cassettes. The (tape) loading screen just said Bounbaby, so you know I had to check it out. When it finally ran, boy, what a warped and halarious game that came up.
After you "run" the program, the screen clears and the following explanation came up:

Bouncing Baby Boys
The absent minded lady upstairs is throwing the babies out with the dish-water again. Your job is to use the crib to bounce the poor things across the street. If one happens to reach the ground, you have to clean up the mess!! After you loose, hit the red button to play again.

After I pressed the "fire button" a game like Clowns and Balloons came up, and the "babies" come out and you have to move the "carrage" under them sort of like a sideways pong game. BUT if you miss, the "baby" squishes and blood squirts out. Very funny old graphics, very funny warped humor. game starts to get hard as 4 or five babies get thrown out at one time. I tried to Google this game but nothing came up, and nothing for Cload Inc. In fact the only way I found out about the company and author was to list the program and it is hidden in line 1.

Ratings
Graphics (basic) 2.5
Gameplay 3 joystick was slow to respond
ease of understanding 5
(Warped) fun factor 5

Overall 4 out of 5

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