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[gimymblert]

okay how on earth did you generate that first paragraph with teh torso! it's so specific it is scary, how can a generator be so specific?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

okay how on earth did you generate that first paragraph with teh torso! it's so specific it is scary, how can a generator be so specific?

Then you'll need to check out some of the "horror" archetype gods in the next release! There's a pretty complex system in place for creating weird creatures, various amalgams of limbs/heads/bodies/etc, and so on .

[gimymblert]

So that's beyond a madlib :D
I guess there is a hierarchy of template with specific condition and context checking in the selection process? 

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

So that's beyond a madlib :D
I guess there is a hierarchy of template with specific condition and context checking in the selection process? 

Something of that sort! Some parts are quite hand-made (and there's a lot of them), some parts are pieced together, some parts have many options (e.g. 2/3/4/5 heads, etc), and then it puts together a combination of them, whilst also making sure that future gods won't repeat the same kinds of descriptions.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I am pleased to report that a very large update will be coming your way this week (tomorrow), to make up for last week's somewhat lackluster effort. All 7 days this week have been full coding days, and there's loads of new areas, loads of new graphics, and some other stuff to show off too. Should be uploading it around midday tomorrow!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

A huge update this week! With my PhD submitted to my university and the paper I’ve been working on the last month submitted to an appropriate journal, I’ve been able to devote the full week to coding. We therefore have some level design, some graphics, some ideas, and some other stuff, so let’s get going.

LEVEL DESIGN

I’ve been working a lot on many of the building interiors this week that still need doing. First off I’ve finished off religious building interiors, and handled a pretty wide range of strange goings-on and errors with their generation, such as the ability to walk outside them through cracks in the walls, or staircases which don’t correctly match up with their partners on other floors. They can have 1/2/3 floors, and have a massive range of variation in pretty much every way. Here are some examples, drawn from a religious district in one of the world I was recently testing things in (these imagines display the outside, the ground floor, then other higher floors, going left to right):







I’ve also thrown together the generation code for the most basic of houses, those in slums and their slightly-better equivalents in lower-class housing districts. These, naturally, are tremendously simple, and it will be extremely rare for a player to have any need to enter one, but they’re there now, and on the off-chance that one will be housing something secret in a basement, the code is in place to allow that to be the case in the future. It generates an appropriately-sized space, places a bed against a wall, and then places a table against a wall, and some chairs around the table; slum housing, by contrast, will only have a bed (and a very simple bed at that) and sometimes a chair.





I then went to work on taverns, which always spawn in every single lower-class district. There are there basic sizes of tavern (all are a simple rectangular shape, and in keeping with my intention to make buildings broadly understandable from only the outside, no other buildings share this basic shape in the sizes that taverns occupy). There’s several dozen possible interiors, each with various sub-sets of generation and different angles they can be oriented in, tables/chairs which do/don’t spawn, etc, and all contain a staircase up to the bedroom where the innkeeper lives, and a small number contain a down staircase towards a wine/ale cellar, and perhaps something secret down there too? Pretty much all building interiors are being generated with the possibility of secret content – or rather, with areas that the game will use to hide a secret if necessary – so that if you’re told in the future that the innkeep of The Mask and Flagon is hiding something behind a locked door in the basement, it’ll be there.



After that I worked on shops, creating the algorithm by which they decide where to put the ‘stall’ inside the shop (i.e. where the items will be laid out, somewhat akin to how shops work on NetHack), but since these currently lack items or shopkeepers, they aren’t especially fascinating yet, and don’t really merit a screenshot. I then moved onto military hospitals, which contain naturally lots of beds which will, in 0.8, have people in various states of decay/injury in them; chapels and areas where those religiously-involved with the military or with healthcare are stationed; and also naturally stores of healing items, herbs, etc. There aren’t going to be any non-military hospitals in the game: this is one of those gameplay > realism things, and I wanted to really focus the source of health items in one single place, and other districts were sufficiently busy whilst military districts were not, and thus, they ended up there. Hospitals vary in the layouts of their wings, how the beds are positioned along the walls and the quantity of the beds; and also the large stack of tables one can see in the top room of the first image, for example, will all contain various herbs, medical items, etc, in the future, whilst the lower room opposite it will contain quarters for the doctors, and potentially holy books as well if the civilization is particularly religious. There are equivalent rooms in the lower picture, and in other hospitals too.





Lastly, I’ve started on cathedrals. Each religion has one in the city centre of their home nation. These are actually going to be a massive task; I would expect at least two more days of solid work to finish them off, if not three, as they are huge, and require a lot of variation, but also need to appear broadly consistent with the ordinary churches of that same religion. As you can see from the screenshot below they’re pretty big (and that screenshot doesn’t show the entire thing), and very varied, and contain the majority of the relics for a religion, as well as obviously being a central holy place. Additionally, you may notice that the stone on the ground is slightly shaded; that’s because it is tiles rather than stone flooring, and the slight shading is in line with the colours on that nation’s flag, and this will be the case for all important/wealthy buildings (castles, cathedrals, manors, etc). Naturally the pattern for the ‘wings’ of the cathedral is a larger version of the same pattern for churches, and the inside is designed to show a level of consistency with the smaller churches in that variant:



PROCEDURAL GRAPHICS

I’ve pushed ahead on a lot of the new graphics for this week, and also done some more “background” work on creating infrastructures to allow these graphics to be used as clues and information that NPCs will give you in the next few months – which is to say, if a particular religion worships at a fiery altar, then written information on that religion might say “those who worship at the altar of flame” rather than “those who worship [God name]”, and so forth. Firstly I did some more work on finishing off the massive variation in religious altars we’re going to see in 0.7 – there are many archetypes, many variations, and something in the range of several tens of thousands of possible different religious altars. I’m working up to producing a detailed blog entry on these altars, maybe next week if they’re all done by then, but in the mean time, here’s another for your perusal:



I’ve also, having finished off gongs last week, been working on some of the other general objects you’re going to find around the place. I spent a little over a day working on generating vases, some of which spawn for certain religions, and some of which will spawn in the castles and upper-class housing for particular civilizations. There’s several dozen designs, several dozen colours and about a dozen different shapes, so (especially once the entire world is no longer pre-explored!) it’ll be a long time until anyone comes close to seeing all the variations. Again, these will in the future be tied to information the player gets, and to my desire to focus gameplay on discovering the world, understanding the world, and figuring out data the player possesses. Say you hear about a chamber in a distant castle which contains “four fragile dragons” – find the room with four vases, and if those all depict a dragon, then you’re in the right place. Here are some examples:



OTHER STUFF

A few other things. Firstly, doors have been simplified down to two types – locked and unlocked (I was previously thinking about adding “closed” and “open” as sub-variables of both, but that was quickly getting too confusing, and distinctly difficult to represent). Locked doors have a “full” door symbol, whilst unlocked doors have an open archway. Some buildings in various civs will of course be unlocked by default, like religious buildings, other public buildings, etc. If you’re trying to go through a locked door, you’ll need the appropriate key, though for this release, all doors will be open. I’ve also been doing some general figuring-stuff-out work on NPCs, NPC schedules, how they should be handled by the game, how they should be abstracted out when you’re far away from them, which NPCs the game should track and how it should track them, etc. Nothing visible to report on that front, but it’ll be important in the future.

Thanks to everyone for reading this monster entry. Next time: something else!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I'm hoping to host this year's IRDC! If you're at all interested, please take a look here and leave some feedback:

http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/2vag54/potentially_hosting_irdc_europe_at_university_of/

[cbet]

I just listened to your interview on roguelike radio and really enjoyed it.

I am simply amazed by how much you are able to get done in a week.  Do you have any advice for someone with a bad habit of procrastination?  Does your plan extend to knowing exactly what you'll be working on each day before you sit down to start coding?

Thanks and congratulations on submitting your PhD!  I have some idea of how much effort that requires and the fact that you were able to do it in just three years AND make this game is incredible.

[alvarop]

Yep, the roguelike radio was very interesting. Congratulations on everything man!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I just listened to your interview on roguelike radio and really enjoyed it.

I am simply amazed by how much you are able to get done in a week.  Do you have any advice for someone with a bad habit of procrastination?  Does your plan extend to knowing exactly what you'll be working on each day before you sit down to start coding?

Thanks and congratulations on submitting your PhD!  I have some idea of how much effort that requires and the fact that you were able to do it in just three years AND make this game is incredible.

Excellent! Glad you liked it.

Whew, well, first off - I procrastinate too, and I really beat myself up about it (believe it or not). For instance, in this last week I've coded a ton of URR, submitted an academic paper and just done a lot of general networking/planning stuff in games academia, but I feel like I've wasted a painful amount of each day. It's just how I think.

But: I always have a plan before I start coding each day, and I like to vary what I'm doing. One day I'll do graphics, one day technical aspects, one day level generation, one day bugfixing; until the last week or two when I'm crunching for a new release, I try to keep development quite open and multi-pronged so that whatever aspect I feel like working on today - "urgh, programming is dull, but I'd love to make some new graphics today" - I'll always have something I can work on. I also have a general plan for each release, of course, but my specific day-to-day plan never extends further than about three days, since it only really serves as a loose guide. But honestly, the best way to stop myself procrastinating (and maybe this will sound rather extreme...) is just to focus on my age, my inevitable death, the time I've wasted in the past, things like that - and voila, I'll get working. I focus on where I want to be academically + creatively with URR and my academic career x years from now, and realize that isn't going to happen without me getting off my backside and working. Just think - "if I died today, would I content with what I've achieved?", and if the answer's no, then get working. And my answer's always no . Also, since your username is cbet - is that a poker reference?

And thanks! I very much appreciate it . It wasn't easy, but URR actually served as a welcome relief from the doctorate when it was just feeling too daunting.

Yep, the roguelike radio was very interesting. Congratulations on everything man!

Cheers!  

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

PC Gamer's write-up of last year's ProcJam (the one that, as mentioned previously, uses the term 'giga-roguelike' about URR):

http://www.pcgamer.com/special-report-procjam-and-the-future-of-procedural-generation/

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

First off – I’m planning to host this year’s IRDC (International Roguelike Developers Conference), either at the University of Lincoln, or possibly at the National Video Game Arcade in Nottingham (both in the UK), at some time around the end of June. If you’re interested, and if you would attend, please let me know so I can gauge interest/numbers. The conference is an “unconference” and open to everyone from developers to fans, academics to journalists, and whoever else fancies coming along. It’s entirely free. There will probably be one day of talks, one day of demos, and general socializing/eating/other human activities.

In the mean time:

Cathedrals:

Cathedrals, at last, are finished. They took the best part of the week to make as varied and interesting as I wanted – and to put in place features that will be needed in 0.8, such as quarters for the priests, potential for a cathedral to lead to a crypt, etc – but now they’re done, and I think there’s around 20,000,000 possible variations, give or take. Whereas the smaller religious buildings for each religion have names chosen from a large set, so you might get churches, pagodas, stupas, parsonages, etc, the largest building for each religion is known as a “cathedral” always – this is not out of an attempt to be christian-focused, but simply because there aren’t enough specific words for “a larger than normal religious building” to allow every religion to have its own! Whilst there may be dozens of lesser religious buildings around towns, cities, monasteries, etc, there will only be one cathedral, always positioned (as those who have explored 0.6 may have seen) in the city center of that religion’s home nation.

Here’s the cathedral I unveiled last week (just repeated here for the sake of comparison) and two of the others that have been generated this week, to give some idea of the variety. I spent around two hours just generating cathedrals over and over – it worked through pretty much every archetype and highlighted a small number of bugs, but with those fixed, I’m pretty confident they’re all generating correctly and cathedrals, finally, are DONE.






 
Altars:

I’ve finished off the remaining religious altar graphic generation this week, and next week’s blog entry probably is going to be a detailed update about how I went about generating them, the variety across altars, the relationships between altars and the particular kinds of deities they represent (different deities have different archetypes), and so on and so forth. The last set of altars that needed coding were what I (perhaps harshly) call the “standard altars” – these are for the more “ordinary” gods who do not fit into one of the rare archetypes, and are therefore given this set of altars. However, there is still significant variation in this altar archetype – here’s a couple of examples. There are twenty bases, twenty materials the base of the altar can be made from, seven altar shapes, thirty “edge” patterns, thirty “inner” patterns, around fifty possible items that can be placed on top, and twenty colour schemes:



(Just to remind everyone, what you see above is only one of the five current “archetypes” for altar generation; there are four others, and one more planned, though that might have to wait until 0.8 )

Crypts (Planning):

I have begun design work on crypts, and these will be one of the next things I’ll show on the blog. At this point I’ve figured out how I want them to generate, and the differences between the two locations they can appear – crypts can be found in graveyards, in which case it will be a broadly “secular” crypt for important figures from that nation’s leading family, particularly important/noble knights/etc; and they can also be found under cathedrals, in which case it will be a “religious” crypt containing past religious rulers, saints, etc. Of course, some of these bodies might be missing if they died far from the home nation, and if you happen to read in a book somewhere that they died carrying a particular relic…

Anyway. I’ve been planning this out, and also the far less likely things that will generate in each crypt to add variation, and also how the graphics for the specific cadaver tombs and sarcophagi in crypts should be generated, and also just the technical stuff of making sure this ties correctly to figures in world history. This week has only been planning, but in the coming week crypts are one of the things I’ll be working on. Since that might be quite a big task, I’m also aiming to generate a whole bunch of the smaller/lesser buildings out there as well – I’m thinking military barracks, slave quarters, prisons and asylums, and maybe some hunter-gatherer buildings should all be done this week, but we’ll see what takes my fancy.

In Conclusion:

See you all next week for either the detailed examination of religious altars, or a more general update on crypts and other buildings, depending on whether I get Google Analytics sorted out on the blog before then, since the latest update I downloaded completely broke it. Sigh.

[happymonster]

Can I ask how you are dealing with these randomly generated building interiors? Do you use a random combination of pre-built sections. Is this controlled in the program, or via a data driven approach?

[cbet]

Also, since your username is cbet - is that a poker reference?

Not really.  I started using it before I knew it was a poker term but then I liked it even more after I was told.

Thanks for the reply.  This is very helpful.

Your technique reminds me a little of Buddhist monks who sit and watch decomposing bodies to become more aware of the transience of life

These cathedrals look beautiful.  I look forward to searching for hidden meanings in their architecture that proves the existence of lost civilisations

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Can I ask how you are dealing with these randomly generated building interiors? Do you use a random combination of pre-built sections. Is this controlled in the program, or via a data driven approach?

Sure! A combination of things; there are a huge number of pre-built areas, but those also vary according to a wide range of factors. There's also a lot of randomness involved according to how the areas are stitched together, and what you find in those areas, and the specific nature of the items (altars, vases, chairs, whatever) that do (or don't) generate. It also varies according to the building; a barracks, for instance, has a tiny amount of variation compared to a cathedral (or, soon, a castle). There are also some data structures there to ensure consistency across buildings, i.e. the massive cathedral for religion X should look broadly akin to the smaller churches/pagodas/vicarages/whatever of religion X. This will sound ridiculous for someone making a game of this sort, but I'm not actually very au fait with programming lingo - I'm not sure what your final question means! Can you elaborate?!

Not really.  I started using it before I knew it was a poker term but then I liked it even more after I was told.

Thanks for the reply.  This is very helpful.

Your technique reminds me a little of Buddhist monks who sit and watch decomposing bodies to become more aware of the transience of life

These cathedrals look beautiful.  I look forward to searching for hidden meanings in their architecture that proves the existence of lost civilisations

Ha - I think there is definitely some overlap there. And thanks! Hidden meaning is, in many ways, what the game is all about

[happymonster]

Thanks for the explanation. With regard to the last question I meant is a lot of these decisions programmed into the game (whether to use chairs, vases, etc..) or do you use text files to determine the values (or a scripting language)?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Thanks for the explanation. With regard to the last question I meant is a lot of these decisions programmed into the game (whether to use chairs, vases, etc..) or do you use text files to determine the values (or a scripting language)?

Ah, got it. A combination: some buildings are largely programmed into the game, whilst others have text files with potential rooms. There's always a mix though - an 's' in a text string grid for a cathedral, for instance, may be a statue, a brazier, a vase, a gong, an incense holder, a pillar, or nothing, depending on the religion, and each of these decisions also brings with it other decisions about what the game can/can't then place nearby, etc etc.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

IRDC Stuff

First off: I am organizing the International Roguelike Development Conference (Europe) at either the University of Lincoln, or the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham (both in the UK), probably at the end of June (27-28 ). If you are interested in attending, please let me know. I’m also giving the “keynote” talk at the North American IRDC (more information at http://irdc2015usa.tumblr.com/) but the fellow organizing it really needs to know about numbers and those interested as soon as possible. John Harris, writer of the long-running @Play column, is also likely to attend, and I’m in the process of trying to get in touch with some interested North American games academics. Again, if you’re in NA and interested in attending, please get in touch with either me, or the organizer via the Google form on the tumblr link I posted above. It is hugely important that we get some idea of numbers, especially for the NA IRDC, since one has never been successfully hosted in North America before.

Now, onto URR (though I’m afraid the above message will likely pop up every few weeks on this blog, since I want to get as many people attending both as possible!).

Crypts

My main focus this week has been on generating crypts. These appear below cathedrals and graveyards, and are quite rare – probably around half a dozen or so will be generated in the entire world. Those below a cathedral are home to religious leaders, saints, holy warriors and the like (assuming their bodies were recovered), and may also contain things like altars, religious archives, and various other things you’ll have to seek out for yourself. On the other hand, crypts beneath graveyards are “secular” and focused on the ruling family/house of that nation, so contain past rulers, important figures from that house, and the like, and since that crypt is more public than one directly beneath a cathedral, you may (in 0.8 ) find some other individuals lurking around there as well. The “segments” that make up a crypt are, like so much else, dependent on the shapes preferred by the civilization, so you’ll find crypts with lots of squares, circles, octagons, and various other shapes; they also vary massively in their layouts (I used a modular node-based generation system for these), and their “themes” – for instance, the top crypt of these two has a “desert theme” and sand has begun to flood in; the second crypt has an “overgrown” theme being found in a jungle; and there are several other, rarer, and pretty interesting themes which can affect the entire crypt. I’ll probably have these themes spread into other underground areas as well in the future.





One interesting feature of crypts (and from this point onwards this will apply to all underground areas) is the lighting system. You see those yellow/orange/red symbols in the pictures above? These are candle stands or braziers, and in-game they flicker between the three colours, and provide light, even if you haven’t explored what is between them. This means that you can sometimes spot areas distant in the dungeon which are lit as long as you have a clear line of sight to them, even if you cannot see what lies in-between. Experientially this makes for a very intriguing experience exploring an underground area which is quite distinct from other regions – as you explore you sometimes “catch a glimpse” of a part of the crypt you haven’t yet explored, and it makes it feel more like “discovery” than some above-ground areas. Also, in 0.8 onwards unless you have your own source of light your FOV will be significantly reduced, so other lights in the crypt act as “waypoints” to guide you from location to location. The grey ohm symbols, meanwhile, are sarcophagi/cadaver tombs themselves, and I’ll be working on the generation of the graphics for those (and their connection to family histories) soon.

Barracks

One of the “small” buildings I worked on this week was the barracks, which spawn in huge numbers in the military districts of feudal nations, and can also spawn in much smaller numbers (but larger buildings) in the rare desert fortresses of nomads. The fortress barracks are on the left, the feudal fortresses on the right. Currently they only spawn beds, but in 0.8 or 0.9 you will also have piles of items for that particularly soldier – armour, weapons, clothing, etc – next to their bed. Doors sometimes spawn and sometimes down; some rare barracks will spawn with chairs or tables in as well as beds; but they’re generally pretty compact, though they do have a decent number of different possible layouts (which are always consistent throughout a civilization). I’ve also (as per an excellent suggestion) made the glyphs for basic floorings (wooden and soil, in this case wooden) much simpler, and darker, to accentuate the contrast with the walls.



Stables

Not much to show here. They’re stables, aren’t they? And stables without horses. What is a stable without a horse? Who knows?



Parliaments

I’ve also got to work on parliament buildings for feudal nations that have “Representation” as their leadership policy. In this case they are ruled by a President/Prime Minister/First Minister/etc, and this person exists within structures like the Red Senate, the Wise Congress, etc. In 0.8 this person should therefore have a “schedule” of movement between the castle (which will obviously be different for a Representation nation than, say, a Stratocracy ruled by the military) along with an appropriately protective retinue. There are meanwhile four basic layouts for parliaments, and each one then has a wide range of interiors, which also vary according to a number of other civilizational policies (and just general preferences in other ways). They have several floors, and sometimes a bell tower, and as with everything/everywhere else in the game, I’ve implemented appropriate code to allow them to contain some intriguing hidden secrets. Parliaments will also contain significant histories on the nation in question, lots of important people, and probably also some information on criminals, new laws to be enacted, etc, but we’ll figure that out later! As ever, I’m working hard to make sure every type of building looks distinct – admittedly Parliament buildings are pretty damned table/chair-heavy compared to others, but I still think it works (here are horizontal and vertical parliamentary buildings):







And you see those white diamonds? Those are PAINTINGS. Obviously those will be focused in galleries, but you might also find a couple in upper-class houses, parliaments, castles etc, and once I get around to those they will all be procedurally-generated and yield hints about the world. They will serve the same function as statues, but those are both big procedural jobs, so probably… 0.9? Maybe 0.8, but I doubt it, given that NPCs is a pretty colossal/massive thing to work on for 0.8.

(Also, I am aware the middle image looks like the Parliament of Mordor – was just a fluke from a civilization with a dark brick colour, and it was in the tropics, so dark woods are going to be used for the furniture!)

Next Couple of Weeks

Despite the well-documented folly of attempting to predict future blog posts, I’m going to try it again here. The next two weeks (though I’m not sure which order) will consist of two posts. Firstly, I’ve written a very detailed analysis of how the graphics for religious altars are generated (I have thus far own shown a very small fraction of these on the blog), and that’s one partly written for an audience not yet au fait with URR, so I’ll be advertising that post quite heavily; the other entry is an analysis of the danmaku world record I just got this week (!), which comes with a pretty amazing video (if I do say so myself). So one of these should be next week, and one the week after, but I’m not sure about the order just yet. See you then!

[failrate]

What is a stable without horses?  It is, of course, unstable.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

What is a stable without horses?  It is, of course, unstable.

DA-BUM TISHHH!