"Rogue" was inspired by text-based computer games such as the 1971 "Star Trek" game and "Colossal Cave Adventure" released in 1976, along with the high fantasy setting from "Dungeons & Dragons". Toy and Wichman, both students at University of California Santa Cruz, worked together to create their own text-based game but looked to incorporate elements of procedural generation to create a new experience each time the user played the game. Toy later worked at University of California Berkeley where he met Arnold, the lead developer of the "curses" programming library that "Rogue" was dependent on to mimic a graphical display. Arnold helped Toy to optimize the code and incorporate additional features to the game. The commercial ports were inspired when Toy met Lane while working for the Olivetti company, and Toy engaged with Wichman again to help with designing graphics and various ports.