Back to working on my book and still listening to RogueLike Radio

I just listened to the episode with David Craddock, author of "Dungeon H@cks:..."(see below) and really the one who inspired me to begin writing "Let's Make A RogueLike with Construct 2" in the first place.  That and "Stay A While..." are some of my favorite books on the subject.



Dungeon Hacks at Amazon

What really got me started was making this simple tutorial I called "RogueLike Random Maze Tutorial" which just showed Construct 2 users how to make a simple maze and do line of site lighting.

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/4831/rogue-like-random-maze-tutorial-pt-1

(And looks like I'm using the Stone Soup tiles )  Didn't know it at the time.

It's nothing even as fancy as the original Rogue dungeons, and was more about showing how to use groups and functions.

basic Rogue dungeon with rectangular rooms

I just got done with a modular implementation of the original Rogue "tic tac toe" grid dungeon formula that readers will be able to download and plug in to their own projects.

more varied rooms

odd room shapes and sizes. some inner architecture

By tweaking a few variables, the architecture can vary widely.  The rooms come with room order and it knows where to put doors so the dungeon comes with a built in mechanism for where to put locked doors or barriers.

It's addictive just to hit the space bar and watch a new dungeon pop up and imagine the kind of narrative adventure that is possible in that space and then how to make the program look at it and imagine that same thing.

This is just one of several methods I plan to fully explain:

• Basic Rogue (with adjustable variation)
• Room and Hall "agent based" digging method (This is how I first thought to do it with no background and it's still my favorite)
• Pre-cooked room and corridor "lego" method.  This one you can hand-craft your rooms and lay them out procedurally.  I like this method too.
• Berzerk Maze Method.  Makes for good labyrinth type areas.  Very fast and cheap.  You could easily have a fast bullet hell type RogueLite with the maze changing in real time with this one.
• Cellular Automata cave (not my favorite in fact I'm only including it for completeness if I decide to at all)
• Agent based cave carver method:  Is my favorite because there's no doubt you can get everywhere and you get nice caves.
• ?? I plan to explore other cavey methods like using a fluid simulation style algorithm.

Also toying with another procedurally generated  "Regions" with the dungeon area to help determine themes and entities.

...and looks like I better give 'em a map.  Gotta have that map.

 But I'm only on the first one as a complete plug-in with nice comments and in any presentably modular and optimized form. And I may start that one over.

Making a book like this is a lot like trying to make a game, in a way this is both,so I have to cull my ideas early and often if I want to get something complete and together.  The readers should have the concepts they need to get started and should be able to use my modules and procedures and make a successful 7drl.

7 Day Rogue Like



That's a decent goal I think.

But I don't want to promise more than I can deliver.  Right now I think it would be a swell book if it were only a guide to a basic game with procedural dungeons, saving with permadeath, items, basic enemies and inventory and some method of attack / health... with only real time shooting mechanics or something.   We'll see where this goes.