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Articles
This is a listing of articles, arranged by subject.
Articles under “design” will help the developer make decisions about gameplay. Articles under “implementation” will help with algorithm design, and offer various methods of implementing features. Headings are arranged in a general chronological order of development. Large lists of ideas (items, spells, themes, etc.) are in bold.
Development
- Roguelike Dev FAQ
- How to Write a Roguelike in 15 Steps
- 7DRL
- Motivation
- Open Source
- Dynamic World Design (XPS doc)
- MMO Game balance issues (XPS doc)
Fundamentals
- What a roguelike is
- Dungeon
- Items
- Monster
- Character
- Race
- Class
- Skill
- Permadeath
- Shops
- Random generation
Project management
Roguelike developments are complicated projects to handle; if you have weak goals, the project will slip out of your control and its success may be compromised.
- Rewrite
- Bug and Bug Report
- RFE
Game modification
Communities
Design
General
- Alternatives to Permadeath
- Aspects of playing
- Fun Factor
- Power Curve
- Quests in Roguelikes
- RL Terrain
- Religious Constraints
- Roguelike Alphabet
- Spatial Consistency
- The Role of Hunger
- Third Dimension in an ASCII-based Roguelike
- Time Systems
- What a RL should be
Combat
Dungeons
- Basic BSP Dungeon Generation
- Basic directional dungeon generation
- Brogue dungeon terrain and level generation
- Dungeon persistence
- List of dungeon features from the ADOM wiki.
- List of dungeon features from the Crawl wiki.
- List of dungeon features from the NetHack wiki.
- Template Dungeon themeing/generation
- Unangband Dungeon Generation
Interface
- Icons in Roguelikes
- Morgue files, from Cogmind
- Preferred Key Controls
- Roguelike Interface
- User interface features
Magic
Setting, story, and mood
Game ideas
Ideas for roguelikes are posted regularly on rgrd, but over time are forgotten. In an attempt to preserve the more interesting ideas these pages were created:
- Fire Brigade RL by Antonie
- GalaxyRL by tongHoAnh
- God’s 7DRL
- Magic Tower
- Magical Dungeon by Patashu
- Modern Dungeon Exploration
- Murder Mystery RL by Shedletsky
- OrcRL by DrGong
- Poisoned Character Roguelike
- Roguelike DM by Timothy Pruett
- Shopkeeper RL by Antonie
- Time-gate roguelike by anchor0057
- TraderRL by alsagoz
- World of Rogue by Gamer_2k4
Implementation
- Complete Roguelike Tutorial, using python+libtcod
- New Roguelike Tutorial, using Lua+Gideros Mobile
- Ananas aus Caracas: rot.js tutorial
- Code design basics
- Things which are hard to code
- Language in Roguelikes
- Save Files
Programming languages
RogueBasin has articles about these programming languages. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use other languages. The best language for your roguelike is the one you know well (or want to learn).
- BASIC
- C
- C#
- Common Lisp
- C++
- D
- Fortran
- FreeBasic
- FreePascal
- Haskell
- JavaScript
- Java
- Lua
- Python
- Ruby
- Rust
Portability
- Portability Issues
- Unix
- Windows
- Linux
- Mac
- Unicode
- Output libraries
- Filesystem hierarchy standard for game developers
Extensibility
- Roguelike engine
- Info Files
- Info File Variant - Compile-to-Code
- Lua makes info files obsolete
- Entity Component System
- Rule and Event Systems
Map
- Abstract Dungeons
- Basic BSP Dungeon generation
- Cellular Automata Method for Generating Random Cave-Like Levels
- Creating A Forest
- Creating Measurably “Fun” Maps
- Data structures for the map
- Delving a connected cavern
- Designing Flexible, Reusable Algorithms
- Diffusion-limited aggregation
- Dungeon builder written in Python
- A Simple Dungeon Generator for Python 2 or 3
- Dungeon-Building Algorithm
- Grid Based Dungeon Generator
- Irregular Shaped Rooms
- Island and labyrinth map generating algorithm
- Maze Algorithms
- PHP dungeon generator using tile masks
- Simple maze
- Wilderness generation using Voronoi diagrams
- A Python map structure and a simple dungeon generator, part of the python+libtcod tutorial.
- Winding ways
- Simple Rogue levels
- Random Zone Generation
- C# implementation of simple map builder
- Random Walk Cave Generation
Combat
AI
- A Better Monster AI
- Complex NPC Interaction
- Variety in NPC behavior
- Emergent Behaviour in Unangband Monster AI
- Implementing interesting townsfolk AI
- Need driven AI
- Need-based AI in JavaScript
- Pathfinding
- A_Python_3_and_2_Pathfinder_with_Pygame_Example
- Plug-In Monster AI
- Quick Pathfinding in a Dungeon
- Ratio AI
- Roguelike AI - Doing it the generic way
- Roguelike Intelligence series of articles
- Simple way to prevent jams of monsters with A*
- The Incredible Power of Dijkstra Maps
- Tracking by Scent and Sound
- An Alternative Scent Implementation
- Anticipating wall-following pathfinder
- Denizen Herding Behavior
- Smart searching and Modeling the player with a “heatmap”(Not finished)
- Dijkstra Maps Visualized
- Minimax decision tree with alpha-beta pruning, a non-rules-based approach to AI (used by Javelin)
Line of sight, field of vision
- Line of Sight is used to determine when a specific destination square is visible from a source square. This can be used to determine whether a player is visible to a monster, the path an arrow takes to a particular enemy, and as a building block for a field of vision algorithm.
- Field of Vision determines all squares visible from a particular source. This is useful when determining which squares to show a player, what squares are lit up by a light source, etc.
- Using the libtcod library for FOV, and implementing fog-of-war, part of the python+libtcod tutorial.
- C# implementation of field of vision using recursive shadow casting
- Grid based shadow casting / field of vision
Magic
Graphics
Sound
Time management
- An elegant time-management system for roguelikes
- A priority queue based turn scheduling system
- A simple turn scheduling system – Python implementation
- Energy-based time scheduling implementation
Useful algorithms and code
- Compression
- Fractals
- Mersenne twister
- Random name generation
- Random number generator
- Weighted random generator
- Scrolling map
- Line wrapping in C
- Experience table generator
- Protecting your story: How to distribute your story in the clear in a way that prevents someone snooping your code to read it all (useful mostly for OSS games)
- Brief overview of DCSS’ webtiles architecture for online play.
Java Roguelike Development Guide
A list of articles specific to Java roguelike development
- The Choice of Java
- Java Curses Implementation
- Items in Java
- Roguelike Iterative Test-Driven Development in Java
Game Reviews
May give some idea of what people like and don’t like in other games.
Other
The original Dungeondweller articles are archived at [1]. Please do not move them to RogueBasin without permission from the original author.
There are more articles at [2]. Most of these are duplicates of articles here.