Hi folks, just brainstorming on this idea. I'm halfways considering the release of another DM/solo tool. The recent posts from Todd and Ovy have me thinking about one-room-at-a-time programmatic dungeon generation, like from the 1st edition DMG, Ruins of the Undercity, or Mad Monks of Kwantoom.

Hi folks, just brainstorming on this idea. I'm halfways considering the release of another DM/solo tool. The recent posts from Todd and Ovy have me thinking about one-room-at-a-time programmatic dungeon generation, like from the 1st edition DMG, Ruins of the Undercity, or Mad Monks of Kwantoom.

Roguelike map generation is cool in terms of exploration and fog of war, but generally rooms are placed on the grid, subsequently connected with corridors, and revealed bit by bit. that sounds kind of hard to implement.

So, I'm writing up a bit of an outline spec on how I would write this (note that I'm not promising that I'm writing this, I'm just writing a spec to see if I could write it, and if I did write it, how I would do it). Any other folks with programming knowledge on this board, what do you think?

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solo map

an implementation of the 1e DMG dungeon generator, or something like it.
plus inspiration from kabuki kaiser MMoK and RoTU

This solo map generator would be a grid of square lines over a background crosshatch png image.
grid squares occur on some sort of even number distribution for ease of programming math
probably 10x10 but perhaps 20x20.
base objects are designed as SVG objects in JS and re-used and rotated with transform statements.
grid occupancy can be stored in a matrix (2d or 3d?)
should be able to check if a matrix square is occupied with math.
doors and corridor exits are generated at room creation time
e.g. a colored transparent circle.
for starters, everything starts rectilinear.
square rooms
rectangular rooms
square corridors
rectangular corridors
nonstandard shapes still have a rectilinear backing.
90 degrees only, don’t sweat 45 deg for now.


layer order, top to bottom
doors, traps, stairs, and other placed objects
square grid lines, either gray or blue depending on bg color.
room and corridor borders
room and corridor base color image
(optional?) background cross-hatch png
background color, solid blue or black.

potential abstraction layer above rooms:
rooms are grouped by broad functions.
guard rooms likely near the entrance.
entrance room is first-placed room.
entry room in center along bottom
cave entrance
dungeon door
ladder back up
circular staircase back up
stairs back up
defensive fortification room
external tower
etc
rooms of living
kitchen
dining area
den
bedrooms
cesspit
storage
guard rooms
entry fortifications
barracks
fighting pit
armory
cells
rooms of worship
temple
altar
rooms of rulership
throne
antechamber
office
map room
treasure room
empty rooms
stairs up and down.
cave-ins and blocked passages. possibly just the bg color gradient that once transparent
caverns: don’t worry about these until later. ship rectilinear first.
set pieces, e.g. designed rooms

standard rooms are square.
non-standard rooms could be anything that can be shoehorned into a rectilinear format.
circular
octagonal
triangular.

caverns are likely a special shape.
perhaps designed ahead of time and rotated.
perhaps a rectilinear shape but with random triangles placed on half-grid borders.
awareness of a cavern shape here could be tough.
subsequent line points with random reversing obtuse angles are another possibility
perhaps voronoi shapes of a set size might be a simple way to do it.
entire voronoi is bg color at first
entry point is fg color
each neighbor has a 50/50 chance of being fg filled
or
first neighbor has a 100% chance of being filled
subsequent neighbors have a 33% chance of being filled
could be useful:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17285514/is-it-possible-to-make-a-squiggly-line#17285739
http://jsfiddle.net/zadP7/
http://bite-software.co.uk/squiggle/?utm_source=jquer.in&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=content-curation