Introduction
Brogue is a fantastic roguelike game for most operating systems (Linux, MacOS X, and Windows). It’s completely open source (license and cost free) and available for anyone who wants it. The game has a huge following on their forum. It’s also worth pointing out that all the development credit in this game goes to the author Brian Walker.
I was inspired to look up Brogue and build it properly for CentOS/Red Hat (including Fedora 20) after playing Pixel Dungeon (GitHub/Wiki) which is available for all Android devices. Pixel Dungeon credits Brogue for all the success it’s had; therefore it only felt worth it to help the Brogue community out and package it for Red Hat based systems.
How Does It Work?
You start off as a character in a dungeon denoted by an at sign @. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard and/or mouse; you simply navigate your way around. Your goal is to reach 26th floor of it where a prize awaits you (The Amulet of Yendor). You’ll face monsters, starvation, curses and a lot of luck the deeper you go. All of the levels, gear, and monsters are randomly generated; so each time you play the game you will have a different experience. Some experiences are hard, some harder, and some virtually impossible. Roguelike games (like this one) imply that you will die. Most games are short; but each time you play, you’ll learn new things and make it further into the game. It’s important not to get discouraged; but rather give the game a fair chance. In fact, since each experience is different for every single play-through, you won’t be bored with the repetitive nature of rinsing and repeating what you’ve already done over and over again. It’s quite the opposite actually. You’ll learn things that didn’t work for you last time; but you may not get to apply that knowledge on the next play-through since you’ll be in a completely different dungeon.
The in-game graphics could be considered impressive to some and not to others. But hopefully most people have come to realize that graphics don’t make a game and it’s the fun of it that truly fulfills the experience.
Again, I’ll state that when you first dive into this game it can be frustrating. You are going to die a lot until you grasp the concepts. The developer thought about those who just want to hack and slash and win every time the play the game. For this reason; he created a file called the seed catalog which dictates what will be available to you as you explore deeper into the dungeon. You can manipulate this catalogue and make your experience more enjoyable (that is… if enjoyable means easy). If you choose this route, perhaps overtime as you pick up new strategies, you can limit the catalogues contents or just use it’s defaults. It’s up to you!
Note: If you want to update the catalogue; it becomes available to you after you start the program up for the first time. It’s located as ~/.config/brogue/Brogue seed catalog.txt. You can adjust the content of a specific seed and choose that seed in the game by pressing <ctrl>-N on your keyboard. For example: <ctrl>-N and entering in 21 is known to give you a game that is fairly generous to new users. Apparently seed 1331532419 is a good one to start with too (source).
How Do I Get Brogue?
I thought you’d never ask; I’ve packaged the whole thing along with all of it’s dependencies. The easiest way to get it is from my repository I host.
# Visit http://nuxref.com/repo/ and set up a link to the
# repository I host, then run the following:
yum install -y --enablerepo=nuxref \
--enablerepo=nuxref-shared \
brogue
But if you want the required RPMs directly from this blog you can get them here:
- brogue-1.7.4-1.el6.nuxref.x86_64.rpm: The game itself; but it will require you to install some dependencies:
- libtcod-1.5.2-1.el6.nuxref.x86_64.rpm: The game is based on this fantastic engine called The Doryen Library. The Doryen Library was not previously built for CentOS and/or Red Hat; so this additionally took me some time to properly prepare.
- libtcod-devel-1.5.2-1.el6.nuxref.x86_64.rpm (Optional): The development package; you only need this if your going to rebuild brogue from scratch using the source rpm I provided for it.
- libtcod-debuginfo-1.5.2-1.el6.nuxref.x86_64.rpm (Optional): The debug package; you only need this if your debugging the library using gdb.
- libtcod-1.5.2-1.el6.nuxref.src.rpm (Optional): The source package; you only need this you plan on rebuilding the library yourself using the rpm SPEC file (and patch) I created for it.
- brogue-debuginfo-1.7.4-1.el6.nuxref.x86_64.rpm (Optional):The debug package; you only need this if your debugging the game using gdb.
- brogue-1.7.4-1.el6.nuxref.src.rpm (Optional): The source package; you only need this you plan on rebuilding Brogue yourself using the rpm SPEC file (and patch)I created for it.
Getting Started
After you’ve installed the game; you’re ready to begin playing it. It’s truly worth reading the tips to new gamers posted on the Official Brogue Website.
You can launch the game from the Menu bar in Gnome, or you can simply type brogue on the command line. A script I prepared will automatically start everything up for you.
The only other thing worth noting is that all of your configuration and high scores are stored in the ~/.config/brogue directory.
Good Luck!
Sources
- Official Brogue Website: I can’t encourage you enough to check this link out. Especially for the invaluable tips and playing advice it provides to new users.
- Brogue Online Forum: A great place to meet new people and discuss the game. You can use this location to report any issues or pick up strategies of your own.
- Official Brogue Wiki: This is a fantastic resource to learn the environment and about all the things that reside in the game.
I also want to give credit to the graphic I photoshopped as part of my title for this blog. It came from an author who goes by 88grzes who publicly posted it on DiviantART here.