🚀 go-pugleaf

>    Epyx, a computer game company, now has both Rogue and Empire available
> for Atari computers.  They were announced at the Las Vegas CES show and
> are adaptations of their mainframe origins.

While I enjoy playing Rogue, and I enjoyed (past tense [we don't have it
anymore]) playing Empire, two questions come to mind.

1) Will the Epyx versions be *just* like the main-frame versions?
	I think not.  There is not enough memory on the Atari computers
	to run a program as complex as Rogue or Empire.  The code for Rogue
	is over 250K.  There are over 80 monsters in the version that I
	play.  Add to that: various weapons, armor, potions, scrolls, wands
	staffs, rings, etc.  And don't forget about the randomly generated
	rooms, halls, traps, and other things.  It just won't fit in 48K,
	64K or even in the 160K (you can get that high if you have a 128K
	RamPower).

2) Which version of Rogue and Empire will be released?
	There are as many versions of Rogue as there are machines that
	it runs on.  There are two versions on this machine alone.  And
	what about Empire?  Which version will that be?  Will they release
	the original (where you play against the machine) or the version
	that we had here (where different players played against each
	other)?

One final comment.  When I read the article in Antic about the release
of both Rogue and Empire, I called 10 different places that carry Atari
software.  Everyone said the same thing: "Never heard of it."  They may
both turn out to be like BallBlaster.  Lots of copies exist, but you
can't buy one to save your soul.

From inside the Tesseract of
	Clancy Malloy