Ideas for a randomized Rougelike?

[TDRR]

I thought about some ways to randomize a level's layout and using also DECORATE to put in random monster/weapon spawns, so technically the level should be different every time you play it.

However i got no ideas about what layout could be the most fun to play, for a reference, the way i would randomize accessible paths would be rolling a bunch random numbers in ACS and depending on the numbers certain walls are closed, or open.

I also thought of another way to randomize it even further, there are 3 (or more) different level layouts and you spawn in a different one based on another ACS number randomizer, hopefully in a multiplayer compatible way this should be feasible.

So, what would be a neat level layout to use in this sort of mod?

[sinaptica]

Have you thought about randomizing portals?

[TDRR]

Have you thought about randomizing portals?

IIRC only line portals are randomizable and since those aren't in older versions of ZDoom the mod would lose it's Zandronum compatibility which really sucks. Also it wouldn't work with the software renderer.

[Caligari87]

A zand-compatible (using ACS and older action specials) one would be silent teleports in "airlocks". Each room/area would have some kind of hallway leading to another area, and each of these halls would be identical. Either have a bent hallway with a silent teleporter line out of sight of both ends (a hidden "airlock"), or have a silent teleport that waits for one door to close, silently teleports you, and then opens the next door (actual "airlock"). There's probably a few other clever variants that would work. The teleport destinations could be randomized at level start, or even "endless" by resetting and reusing rooms as you progress through. The downside is your backtracking would have to be limited in the latter case, and monsters could not be allowed in the airlocks.

[gramps]

I've been playing with randomized portals lately and it works really, really nicely so far. This is pretty much how I've been doing it. Treating the portals as Wang tile edges generates some great dungeons.

I plan to release a demo soon; hoping there's enough interest in the idea to kick off some kind of collab project. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is try portals before you rule them out. Personally I wouldn't trade the nice dungeon generation I'm getting out of them for network play or software rendering.

[Arctangent]

I actually had something like this long ago. I'm just not much of a mapper, so, didn't end up getting anywhere.

[TDRR]

I actually had something like this long ago. I'm just not much of a mapper, so, didn't end up getting anywhere.

Then i got a problem: i'm even less of a mapper
Neat idea though.

As for Caligari's idea, that actually sounds neat, but i'm not too sure of the idea as it wouldn't look nice in multiplayer, i would still fall back to that one if there isn't any other way though.

gramps, i always have had this mentality that everyone should be able to play my mods, even those with a Pentium 3 running Windows XP. Maybe because i'm from a place where these sort of computers are very common, but yeah you get the point.
Also playing Doom online is like half of the magic that makes Doom nowadays, at least for me.

I have also been thinking of some other ways to make it work good on both the software renderer and online play, but haven't gone very far with it. I'm going to play some Angband and see if i can get nice ideas for a bunch of dungeon rooms.

Wait, what if we were to make a rougelike configuration for Oblige?!

[gramps]

TDRR, fair enough! I just had another weird idea about faking a portal with a security camera mimicking your position in another room, but not sure how well it would work. Probably someone's tried it before...

Arctangent, I PM'd you that thing, check it out, it's pretty fun to screw around with