Official development blog

Monthly Archives: June 2014

Mapgen: Cellular Automata

Unlike the 7DRL, which only spanned a 10-level “main dungeon,” Cogmind will cover a much greater area. Naturally a larger world needs a greater diversity of regions to explore. Taking place underground, many of the outlying areas tend to be caves, and for that cellular automata are usually the best choice for generation. I say […]

Posted in Design, Dev Series: Procedural Maps | Tagged , , , | 6 Responses

Mapgen: Tunneling Algorithm

Cogmind’s main dungeon maps are excavated by “tunnelers” that dig corridors and rooms, much in the way a dungeon architect would build a home for their master’s minions. An empty map is seeded by one or more tunnelers, and they travel around that map opening up all the areas that will become occupiable space, e.g. […]

Posted in Design, Dev Series: Procedural Maps | Tagged , , , | 8 Responses

Procedural Map Generation

Procedurally generated maps are a core feature of roguelikes. For a genre that is almost synonymous with “randomness” (within reason), randomized maps are the easiest way to broadly manifest that key element since maps affect many aspects of gameplay from exploration strategy and tactical positioning to item and enemy locations. Notice how walkthroughs for strategy […]

Posted in Design, Dev Series: Procedural Maps | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Responses

Kickstarter?

This is a question I’ve wrestled with for some time now: Should I take the popular crowdfunding route to support Cogmind development? I’ll use this post to lay out the situation and my thoughts both for and against that route. Platforms First, a caveat. As a non-US citizen (no, not UK either) it’s not easy […]

Posted in Marketing | Tagged , , | 8 Responses