Legendary ‘Epyx Rogue’ Is Now Available on Switch, But Players Have Noticed a Serious Bug
Epyx The ScamThe game that helped coin the term ‘roguelike’ is now available on the Nintendo Switch eShop for a fraction of the price. £7.99 / $7.99And while this would normally be cause for celebration, it seems some players have discovered a serious bug that is temporarily locking the game.
To start on the positive side, though, Rogue is a notable game that, if the opening credits don’t give it away, had a huge impact on the medium after its release in the 80s. An Amiga port came out in 1986, and this Switch version appears to be a direct port of that particular release.
Here is the official description:
“In the 1980s, a computer game came along and changed the world of fantasy gaming forever. Randomly generated rooms meant that every journey into the infamous Dungeons of Doom was unique. The powerful combination of random generation with permanent death proved so intoxicating, and the game was so influential that it spawned an entire genre: ‘Rogue-likes’.
“Now you too can experience the thrill of exploring dungeons to find the legendary Amulet of Yendor in this pioneering game. Delve deeper into Rogue’s original graphical reimagining by strategy game giant Epyx, which replaces the previous text-based interface with pixel graphics for the first time.”
However, players have noted that one in-game item – the Wild Magic Scroll – soft-locks the experience as players cannot actually interact with it. You are given two options with the scroll: read it or leave it alone, but you cannot choose either of those options.
The theory here is that because the original Amiga version required the use of a mouse, publisher Pixel Games UK neglected to provide any viable way to interact with dialog on the Switch, thus creating a game-breaking bug.
We’ve reached out to Pixel Games UK to see if this issue is known and if a fix is in the works, but we haven’t heard back at the time of writing. We’ll let you know of any updates when we hear more.