Rog-O-Matic

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Rog-O-Matic is a program developed in 1984 that plays the computer game Rogue.

Described as a "belligerent expert system", Rog-O-Matic performs well when tested against expert Rogue players, even winning the game. Because all information in Rogue is communicated to the player via ASCII text, Rog-O-Matic has automatic access to the same information a human player has. Although many years have passed, the program is still the subject of some scholarly interest; a 2005 paper said

“

Rog-O-Matic differs from traditional expert systems in that it has the ability to work within a

dynamic environment, for example the randomly generated terrain and adversaries. More importantly, the system was designed to operate in spite of limited information, recording and integrating knowledge about the environment as it is discovered.^[1]

”

Angband, a descendant of Rogue (see roguelike), has a computer player called "APW-Borg" which has successfully completed the game. Although Angband is considered an easier win than Rogue, it is a much more complex game and still very difficult.

One of Rog-O-Matic's authors, Michael Loren Mauldin, would go on to write the Lycos search engine.

[edit] References

Mauldin M., Jacobson G., Appel A., Hamey L. (1984-05-16). ROG-O-MATIC: A Belligerent Expert System. Carnegie Mellon University Department of Computer Science. Retrieved on 2007-10-02.