Post Syndicated from original https://lwn.net/Articles/937631/

After an initial foray into the ways that open-source software has failed
to live up to its early hype,
this Digital
Antiquarian article covers the history of rogue-like games in great
detail.

This brings us back around to a statement I made at the outset:
that roguelikes are the exception that proves the rule of
open-source game development — and just possibly of open-source
software development in general. The cast of thousands who
contribute to them do so in order to make exactly the games that
they want to play, which in the abstract is the best of all
possible reasons to make a game. The experience they end up with
is, unsurprisingly, much like high-wire programming at its most
advanced, presenting players with an immense, multi-faceted system
to be explored and mastered.