The concept of "Rogue" originated with Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman. Toy grew up in Livermore, California, where his father was a nuclear scientist. Once a year, the father's workplace allowed their employees family to visit, which included allowing them to use the facility's mainframe system to play games. Toy took interest in the text-based "Star Trek" game (1971), which represented space combat through characters on screen, and required players to make strategic decisions each turn. Toy took to learn programming and recreate this game on other computer systems that he could access, including the Processor Technology Sol-20 and the Atari 400.