Many roguelikes have static levels that have something I call the story. In fact even random levels have their own "story", but it's less obvious. Static levels or places have an important role to bring something special to the basic random dungeon generation style, but they themselves can become rather boring, because they are always the same.
Some games try to solve this by randomly selecting different elements for the static level. Sokoban in Nethack has couple of variations for each level of the sokoban branch and I think the artifact can also be either bag of holding or amulet of reflection.
In Sokoban's case the next level would be changing parts of levels to create even more variations of the sokoban puzzle, but I don't know if it's even possible. The hard core solution would be a random sokoban puzzle generator that would create the level and solution using no static parts whatsoever. It could be possible to write such a routine, but I'm guessing it's quite difficult to do.
The story is an essential part of a level theme and more detailed story is more interesting one in theory. Sometimes the story can be as simple as some special type of monster(s) that live in some location. There may be also some treasure you can find either by killing the monster or the treasure is hidden and guarded by the monster. Without a story the level is just a bunch of rooms and corridors you have to explore. Well, nothing wrong with that either, it's just not that exciting.
Trying to find the way to the next level of storytelling is difficult, because you want to avoid static elements but at the same time try to create them using some kind of random or semi-random technique. Quests, artifacts and special monsters are ok I guess, but there could be other type of stories as well, it's just a matter of trying to think hard what could happen in a dungeon other than that.
Saturday, 16 January 2016
Sunday, 3 January 2016
Build style
I have started this year with a critical revisit to level generation from the ground up. First thing to check out was the overall style of level themes and other elements. Each theme has information about natural rock types of walls, floors etc. and then a build style which determines tiles for rooms and many other things.
I had already made a distinction between natural and build styles, but some build styles were removed, because they were actually just the natural style of the level which means rooms don't have artificial walls, they are only carved into the bedrock of the level. Also an important change is the ability to mix build styles so not everything is made with the same style per level. There will be a secondary style for most themes and also possibly random styles which still fit into the current style.
The idea of styles is that they make the dungeon generation abstract. Then there is no need to think about individual tiles and their roles in the dungeon generation. Everything is reduced to abstract walls and floors, artificial versions of those and other things needed in the creation. You can then add a style/theme and the new level theme is done just like that, at least what comes to the style of tiles.
Rooms also have their own type, because some rooms are special. Still, even room data could be retrieved from the build style and it's probably something I'm going to do, at least for some room types. The difficult part in "generic" room styles is that many rooms are quite special and would probably require some heavy data so that each room type looks different depending on the build style or even the level theme. It's probably much easier to plan what room types each theme has and then design room creation only for those types.
I had already made a distinction between natural and build styles, but some build styles were removed, because they were actually just the natural style of the level which means rooms don't have artificial walls, they are only carved into the bedrock of the level. Also an important change is the ability to mix build styles so not everything is made with the same style per level. There will be a secondary style for most themes and also possibly random styles which still fit into the current style.
The idea of styles is that they make the dungeon generation abstract. Then there is no need to think about individual tiles and their roles in the dungeon generation. Everything is reduced to abstract walls and floors, artificial versions of those and other things needed in the creation. You can then add a style/theme and the new level theme is done just like that, at least what comes to the style of tiles.
Rooms also have their own type, because some rooms are special. Still, even room data could be retrieved from the build style and it's probably something I'm going to do, at least for some room types. The difficult part in "generic" room styles is that many rooms are quite special and would probably require some heavy data so that each room type looks different depending on the build style or even the level theme. It's probably much easier to plan what room types each theme has and then design room creation only for those types.
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