"Rogue-like" is a well-known video game genre: "Spelunky 2," "Noita," "Hades," "Demons Ate My Neighbors," "Caves of Qud," "Stoneshard," and "Atomicrops" are relatively recent Examples. But have you ever wondered about the true origin of their names? More to the point, have you ever wanted to actually play the ancient progenitor that started it all, thanks to the release today of the first "Rogue," developed by Epyx and released in 1980, now available on Steam?

(Purists may want to point out that the original Rogue was actually developed for a Unix-based mainframe at the University of California, but if you want a history lesson, I suggest you take a look at Wikipedia.)

Rogue is a top-down dungeon, a 2D ASCII map composed of rooms connected by angular corridors, with weapons, armor, magic items, food, potions, traps, and monsters of all kinds to battle. The job is simple: complete 26 randomly generated levels, find the Amulet of Yendor, and escape. (FYI, it's not simple and you probably won't make it to the end.)

Primitive, but also one of the best gaming experiences of its time. I have no idea how many hours I spent on Rogue, but it was a lot. And it spawned dozens of clones and variants.

That said, I'm not going to jump into this game with both feet, but there is a nostalgia to this game that I look forward to indulging. Friendly advice - if you'd like to try it yourself, you can use the "? " key to see the full list of commands (all operated by keyboard).

Steam's Roguelike requires a functional PC of some sort, anything that runs Windows 7; you can search under the tags "Roguelike" and "Traditional Roguelike.