A long time ago, on a computer system far, far, away, there was rogue.
Players wandered a dungeon, hacking and slashing at monsters, gaining
treasures, becoming more powerful, and living their D&D nightmares.

Rogue was a good game; people still play it.  It was even distributed
with many copies of Unix.  But rogue is a relatively simple and limited
game compared to most of the descendants it has spawned...

Although the common features of rogue and its many descendants are
'obvious' to many people, they are difficult to describe in simple
terms.  Generally, the games mentioned below are single-user, fantasy 
role-playing computer games, nearly always set in a dungeon, run with a 
simple character-graphic interface.  In all of the games, the player 
controls a single character, who roams around getting more powerful, 
in order to fulfill a difficult quest.  Sword-and-sorcery rule the day.  
Logistically, they're almost all free games; executables, and usually
sources, are available by FTP.

The similarities end there, though.  More information can be found 
in the 6 UseNet newsgroups dedicated to rogue and its descendants - 
rec.games.roguelike.nethack, rec.games.roguelike.moria, 
rec.games.roguelike.rogue, rec.games.roguelike.angband, 
rec.games.roguelike.misc, and rec.games.roguelike.announce 
(alt.games.omega belongs in this list, but is a poorly propagated 
group, which many readers cannot access.)

Below are listed basic information about all roguelike games known to me.  
I've listed the main ftp site(s) for each game; however, it's polite to 
use mirror sites, if closer to you, especially if you're not in the same 
continent.  I've grouped the listings into 'major' games (those with
their own newsgroups), 'minor' games (other current games), and 
'older' games (games that haven't been updated in several years.).

Most of my information comes from trolling the various newsgroups; if your 
favorite game isn't listed, send mail to rgra@bronze.lcs.mit.edu

If you have WWW access, (Mosaic, Lynx, NetScape, etc.) a Home Page for
many of the more popular Roguelike games is at:
http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/

GAME:      Angband 
Release:   2.7.9v6 (06 Aug 96)
Newsgroup: rec.games.roguelike.angband
FTP Site:  ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/
           ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Angband/
           ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband (developers' site)
FAQ Avail: jth@paranoia.com (Jason Holtzapple)  (01/96)
Spoilers:  ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Help
           ftp://dunadan.imvi.com/pub/angband/angfaq2.txt
WWW:       http://www.voicenet.com/~benh/Angband/
           http://www.paranoia.com/~jth/angband/ (unofficial)
Maint.:    Ben Harrison <benh@voicenet.com>  (03/95)
Platforms: Unix, Linux, DOS, OS2, MS-Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc.
Features:  infinite random dungeon.  unique monsters and artifacts. 
Misc:      Still somewhat close to Moria in feel. 
Variants:  BAngband (obsolete), FAngband, SAngband (0.8), QAngband (1.4.1)
           Some unofficial variants live in ftp.cis.ksu.edu:/pub/upload
           Some people prefer PC Angband 1.4, available at KSU.

GAME:      Moria 
Release:   5.5.2 (07/26/94)
Newsgroup: rec.games.roguelike.moria (was rec.games.moria)
FTP Site:  ftp://ftp.cis.ksu.edu/pub/Games/Moria/
           or mail 'help' to mailserver@cis.ksu.edu 
FAQ Avail: grabiner@msri.org (David Grabiner)  Posted biweekly.
           http://remarque.berkeley.edu/~grabiner/moriafaq.html
Spoilers:  At the ftp site. 
WWW:       http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/moria/moria.html
Platforms: Unix, PC, Mac, VMS, Amiga, Atari, ... 
Features:  Infinite dungeon.   Restocking stores.  6 classes/8 races.
Misc:      What is generally discussed is more properly called Umoria 
Variants:  PMoria, IMoria (VMS only; see Moria FAQ), Morgul, Druid Moria, 
           Purple X (Mac), CWMMoria (Amiga), DoomsDay 2000 (VMS/PC?); see 
           also Angband, BOSS.

GAME:      NetHack
Release:   3.2.1 (6/12/96)
Newsgroup: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (was rec.games.hack)
FTP Site:  ftp://ftp.uu.net:/pub/games/nethack
FAQ Avail: posted biweekly
Spoilers:  ftp.uu.net:/usenet/comp.sources.games/volume13/nh-spoilers3/*
           ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/games/nethack/
                 (WCST spoilers, monster listings, game variants, etc)
WWW:       http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/nethack/
                 (Japanese mirror at: ftp.ae.keio.ac.jp:/pub/doc/nethack)
           http://www.engin.umich.edu/~mneylon/nethack/
Platforms: Unixes, Mac, PC, NT, OS/2, Amiga, VMS, Atari, X
Features:  Everything including the kitchen sink
Misc:      ChrHack and NhSound PC add-ons available (for 3.1.3)
Variants:  Hack Lite (see below), NetHack--, NetHack+, NHTNG, SLASH
           (all still based on 3.1.3 for the moment)