Feature Request: Random Dungeon Size

[Geofferic]

One thing I always wanted from Angband was more variety in the dungeon even for 'boring' levels.

The idea is that before dungeon generation, the size of the dungeon is determined from a simple array that uses the current dungeon size as a neutral can go down to 1/10th that size (maybe just the room you start in, a hallway, and then a vault for a special level) up to something like four times the size of the current dungeon.

In that vein, it could also have different dungeon shapes, to a degree. For instance, the dungeon could be L shaped or a giant square or two dungeons of the current size next to each other, etc. Think the shapes of tetris.

Anyway, just something I always thought would be neat.

Another idea would be irregular dungeon shapes, but I feel like that might be asking too much.

[Magnate]

There are a number of variants with much improved dungeon generation algorithms, resulting in all sorts of weird and wonderful non-rectangular rooms. Check out S, NPP, Un, FA etc. etc.

I agree with you that different sized levels would be more interesting, and not just "oh, this is a small level" and "this is another normal-sized level". More than two sizes of level would be an improvement, and your random idea sounds fine.

CC

[pav]

Just don't make them larger than the current large levels. They are large enough.

BTW small levels come in many flavours, they can go from 1x1 to 4x2 screens, IIRC.

[Big Al]

I was playing around with the dungeon generation stuff a few months ago, and one of the things I tried was taking the current dungeon size, and randomly 'blocking off' large sections of dungeon where nothing would be generated. It would pick a dungeon (based on depth and randomness) out of:
a) Normal size
b) Block off some random number of rows along the bottom edge to make a long skinny dungeon
c) Block off some columns on the right edge to be a tall dungeon
d) Block off some squares in one or more of the corners to make an 'L', 'T' or '+' shaped dungeon
e) Block off random squares around the edge to make a 'raggedly' shaped dungeon
f) Some combination of a) through e)

It was actually rather trivial to implement. I was actually rewriting the whole dungeon generation stuff altogether at the time.

(Sorry if this is posted twice - doesn't appear to be, but internet has been flaky all day)

[Geofferic]

Sounds interesting to me, Big Al.

What about 'donuts'? Where the center of the dungeon is all un-diggable or a sort of ruined vault or maybe a giant pit?

[Big Al]

Yeah that'd be cool too.

This was all part of a larger plan of mine to (try to) make levels more interesting, geography-wise.

To put in simply: the current method generates a bunch of rooms, then connects all the rooms together with hallway. My idea was to make one room; make a path out of that room and connect it to a new room; pick one of the two existing rooms and make a path off of that room to a new third room; pick one of the three existing rooms and make a path off of that room to a new fourth room, etc. While obviously more complicated than that to implement, it was a fairly simple algorithm. Advantages are that all rooms are guaranteed to be connected to each other, no dead end pathways (unless you want them), more tightly compacted rooms (if you want them). The interesting thing is that you can make series of themed elements, eg. a bunch of circular room in an area, or double-wide hallways in an area, or ragged-edged rooms and hallways, or 'curvy' hallways, etc.

Then I went back to school and never got a chance to finish it satisfactorily.

[Geofferic]

Yeah, I have never 'finished' any of my *band experiments since I'm always in school.

Now that I'm law school, tho, I seem to have more free time since I just don't go to class!

I was thinking that there should be 'special feature' dungeons that don't necessarily have special items or OOD mobs. Just like what appears to be an abandoned dwarf temple or something.

Maybe I'm talking about a variant again and don't know it!