As many members of this site know I’ve been a big fan of the Amiga version of Rogue for a while.
As such, I’ve been hunting for an original boxed copy of this pretty rare game, at least in terms of the Amiga platform, for years. Physical copies are hard to find because when it was released for Amiga many gamers were heavily focused on graphics and sound first and foremost. While Rogue offered a very fun experience, visually - especially on a powerful system like the Amiga in 1986 - it often failed to impress at first glance.
Only those who actually played the game came to know how addicting it could be once the specifics were practiced and learned.
Over the past few years whenever a boxed version of Rogue would emerge it would be offered for close to $1,000 if not much more. Obviously that’s ridiculous and frankly obscene. But a few weeks ago one popped on Ebay for far far far less, and even had a Make Offer option, which I used. And to my astonishment the seller accepted my relatively low offer!
The box is in pretty good shape and the manual appears virtually untouched. Naturally, I quickly started playing the game to ensure the disk worked. And it does. But here’s what’s crazy…
When you die, if you have a high enough score your character’s name, score, form of death and level where you died are displayed and added to a top-ten high score list called the Guildmaster’s Hall of Fame.
After my first play I was completely stunned to see my name and score added to a completely blank Hall of Fame screen!
Somehow, some way, this Rogue disk seems to have never been used a single time in the past 37 years before I did.
I can't believe it.
I want to find a plastic box shell of sorts to put this specimen inside for safe keeping where I can still see the box art. But for now I’m going to just keep it on my desk and admire it like the prized possession it is.