RogueTiles

RogueTiles is a Windows-friendly Rogue collection with an optional Allegro 5 tile frontend, custom tile sets, visual settings, and a packaged tile picker. The classic terminal Rogue path is still present, but the downloadable build is meant to be extract-and-play.

Original Rogue was created by Michael Toy, Ken Arnold, and Glenn Wichman. This fork vendors public-domain RL Tiles assets from statico/rltiles and keeps attribution in assets/rltiles/ATTRIBUTION.txt.

1. Open the latest GitHub Release.
2. Download RogueTiles-windows-x64.zip.
3. Extract the zip.
4. Run RogueTiles.exe.
5. Pick a Rogue version from the startup menu.

The release zip includes the game executable, required DLLs, RL Tiles assets, runtime tile packs, variant license/provenance files, and TilePicker.exe.

RogueTiles.exe includes a startup version picker.

• Rogue 5.4.4: the default RogueTiles ruleset, based on the later classic Unix lineage with the broadest command/menu surface in this collection.
• Rogue 5.2.1: bundled from the BSD-style restoration source archive. This first adapter runs from the same executable and uses the shared tile frontend for the dungeon, status bar, camera, and input path.
• Rogue 3.6.2: bundled from the BSD-style early public Unix source archive. This version is much closer to the first widely released Rogue experience, with an older monster table, leaner command set, and bundled period manual/guide text.
• Super-Rogue 9.0.1: bundled from the redistributable Super-Rogue source archive. This expanded variant adds a wider dungeon/status layout, extended attributes, pack volume/carry stats, extra commands such as dip, and a bundled Super-Rogue tutorial guide.

The picker shows each version's era, lineage, license/distribution status, tile support, and feature notes before you start.

Developer note: new engine variants should follow the checklist in docs/variant-porting-checklist.md, including variant-specific monster tile mappings and GUI menu coverage.

Core Rogue controls still work:

• Arrow keys or numpad: move
• h j k l y u b n: vi movement
• .: wait
• i: inventory
• w: wield weapon
• W: wear armor
• q: quaff potion
• r: read scroll
• e: eat food
• t: throw item
• z: zap wand or staff
• ?: command help
• /: identify a visible symbol
• Q: quit

Tile frontend controls:

• F1: read bundled manuals and guides
• F10: choose tile set or switch to in-window ASCII glyph mode
• F11: toggle fullscreen
• + / -: zoom map in or out
• 0: reset map zoom
• F12: open visual settings

Open the settings menu with F12.

• Side Panel Log: moves the message log from the bottom area into a right panel.
• Stylized Log: color-codes and separates log messages.
• Stylized Bottom Bar: applies the styled status treatment to the bottom status bar.
• Blood Spatter: adds visual-only blood marks on walkable tiles after combat.
• Shader Settings: opens optional visual shader effects.
• Wall Thickness: cycles wall rendering from thin edges up to full tile walls.
• Enemy Health Overlay: draws a compact HP bar and stats above visible, undisguised enemies.

Shader settings:

• Dungeon Gloom: adds a vignette-like dungeon darkness pass.
• Damage Flash: flashes the screen when the player takes damage.
• Low HP Pulse: adds a low-health warning pulse.
• Pixel Sharpen: sharpens the rendered scene.
• Posterize: reduces color levels for a chunkier pixel-art look.
• CRT Effect: cycles Off/Subtle/Balanced/Dramatic CRT-style scanlines, vignette, curvature, and color separation.

All visual settings are optional and do not change Rogue gameplay rules.

Run TilePicker.exe from the release folder to edit tile mappings.

The picker lets you:

• Load the included RL Tiles sheet.
• Upload additional tile sheets.
• Append more than one tile set.
• Hide blank tiles while browsing.
• Assign tiles to Rogue terrain, items, player, and monsters.
• Assign variant-specific monster tiles when a Rogue version uses a different A-Z monster table.
• Save tile packs that RogueTiles.exe can use at runtime.

After saving a tile pack, run the game and press F10 to select it.

The release package is laid out like this:

RogueTiles/
  RogueTiles.exe
  TilePicker.exe
  README.md
  LICENSE.TXT
  assets/
  tilepacks/
  tile_picker/
  variants/
  *.dll

The native Windows build uses MSYS2 MinGW64, ncurses, and Allegro 5.

Install MSYS2 dependencies:

C:\msys64\usr\bin\pacman.exe -S --needed `
  mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc `
  mingw-w64-x86_64-make `
  mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf `
  mingw-w64-x86_64-ncurses `
  mingw-w64-x86_64-allegro

Build the game:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-windows-native.ps1 -Tiles

Run from the build folder:

native-build\rogue54.exe --tiles

Build the tile picker executable:

python -m pip install pyinstaller
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-tile-picker-exe.ps1

Create the release folder and zip:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\package-windows.ps1 -Zip

The zip is written to:

dist\RogueTiles-windows-x64.zip

The Android build is a graphics-only developer APK. It lives beside the Windows build and does not include TilePicker.exe or the desktop tile editor.

Before building, add an Android Gradle wrapper under android\ and place the Allegro Android artifacts listed in android\vendor\allegro\README.md.

Build the debug APK:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-android-debug.ps1

The debug APK is written to:

android\app\build\outputs\apk\debug\app-debug.apk

The first Android slice uses the default RogueTiles ruleset, bundled default tiles, and touch controls for movement, wait, look, and descend.

This repo includes a Windows and Android release workflow at .github/workflows/release-windows.yml.

It runs on:

• Manual workflow_dispatch
• Version tags matching v*

On a tag such as v0.4.0-alpha, the workflow builds and uploads both RogueTiles-windows-x64.zip and RogueTiles-android-debug.apk to the GitHub Release. The zip is the file to upload to itch.io; the APK is the installable Android touch-control build.

Current release highlights:

• Adds Super-Rogue 9.0.1 as a selectable game variant with tile rendering, extended HUD stats, GUI menu coverage, and bundled guide text.
• Improves in-game manual reading with a taller F1 reader, chapter selection, and cleaner formatting for nroff-style guide files.
• Expands custom tile pack support across variants, including variant-specific monster assignments in the tile picker.
• Fixes several tile frontend polish issues, including Super-Rogue wide-map rendering, hidden object bleed-through, missing actor fallbacks, shader rendering, blood layering, and packaged runtime assets.

Useful validation commands:

python tests\test_combat_damage_log.py
python tests\test_variant_metadata.py
python tests\test_variant_tile_mapping.py
python tests\test_tilepack_writer.py
python tests\test_tile_picker_packaged.py
python tests\test_tile_picker_generation.py
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\validate-rltiles.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build-windows-native.ps1 -Tiles

Rogue is licensed under a BSD-style license. See LICENSE.TXT.

Bundled in-game manuals and guides, including A Guide to the Dungeons of Doom, are taken from the Rogue source distribution and covered by the same BSD-style redistribution terms.

Original Rogue copyright:

• Copyright (C) 1980-1983, 1985, 1999 Michael Toy, Ken Arnold and Glenn Wichman

Additional source history includes work by:

• Nicholas J. Kisseberth
• David Burren

RL Tiles assets are public domain and attributed under assets/rltiles/ATTRIBUTION.txt.