Creator of 1983 Rogue-Like Game 'Moria' Has Died at Age 64
"Moria, along with Hack (1984) and Larn (1986), is considered to be the first roguelike game, and the first to include a town level," according to Wikipedia. And long-time Slashdot reader neoRUR remembers:At the dawn of the computer era there were some games that borrowed from Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons to create an experience like no other. It brought you into the world and you could be one of those characters, roam around, fight monsters, level up your characters. One of the more popular ones that would add to that was Moria (As in the Mines of Moria from Lord of the Rings) You quest was to kill the Balrog at the end. This week one of the creators, Robert Alan Koeneke, who wrote Moria because he wanted a Rogue like game to play while at school at the University of Oklahoma, passed away. It has inspired many games and RPG's since. I played Moria on the Amiga for hours and hours. His contributions to computer game history will always be remembered. "Koeneke was working on version 5.0 of Moria when he left the university for a job," remembers NME, "though he made Moria open source so others could work on the project."In an email posted by Koeneke to a mailing list for Angband (a subsequent popular roguelike derived from Moria) in 1996, the developer reflected on his legacy. "I have since received thousands of letters from all over the world from players telling about their exploits, and from administrators cursing the day I was born... I received mail from behind the iron curtain (while it was still standing) talking about the game on VAX's [an early range of computers] (which supposedly couldn't be there due to export laws). I used to have a map with pins for every letter I received, but I gave up on that...!" While Koeneke never developed another video game, his influence on the gaming industry cannot be understated as his work directly inspired games like the Diablo series. Those interested in playing the original Moria can do so here.
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