DungeonMaker
Determining the Dungeon Layout
(rooms-file reference)
There is an auxiliary program called "writeroomsfile" that can - you guessed it -
write a rooms-file, prompting you for input. You can also take an existing rooms-file
and edit it in a plain text editor (not a word processor which inserts formatting
codes). The rooms files must be named roomsx with x a single digit integer in
order for DungeonMaker to be able to work with them. Let us go
through an example file:
The first line of the rooms-file reads
Dungeon dimensions - dimX = 100; dimY = 100.
You can enter different dungeon dimensions here. The point (0 , 0) is at the
top-left corner of the dungeon, and the x-axis runs from top to bottom,
the y-axis from left to right. The second line reads
numRooms < 5; numOpen < 1; numClosed < 40; numColumns < 5; numCrawlers < 3.
Change the numbers to fit your needs... in the example above, you can have
at most 4 rooms, no open squares, 39 hand-placed wall tiles, 4 hand-placed
columns, and 2 initial
WallCrawlers.
Next come a series of lines that places rooms, for example:
div: 12; Xdiv: 6; Ydiv: 6; width: 6; lTC: 23; tC: 0; rTC: 0; rC: 1; rBC: 0; bC: 1; lBC: 0; lC: 0; style: 1; delay: 5
This takes some explaining - first, div stands for divisions,
and 12 divisions means that the dungeon area has been equally divided into
12 parts along the x-axis and along the y-axis. This defines 13 points along
both axes, with Xdiv = 0 being at the very top, and Xdiv = 12 at the bottom
of the dungeon. Xdiv and Ydiv determine where the center of the room will be placed.
This scheme was introduced because it allows placement of rooms independent
of dungeon dimensions. All rooms are square, and the width of a room
is counted from the middle on out, without counting the center square. A room
with width 6 thus has (2*6 + 1) (usually open) squares between the left and right
walls. This is to ensure that all rooms have a well defined center, which is
necessary for placement of center doors. The next 8 parameters have the following
meaning: lTC = leftTopCorner, tC = topCenter,
rTC = rightTopCorner, rC = rightCenter, ... and so
on in a clockwise fashion. The values assigned to these parameters
mean the following:
0 = do nothing here;
1 = place a door here;
2 = start a Crawler here that leaves no opening;
3 = start a Crawler here that leaves an opening at the end of its run.
If a Crawler is placed in the center of a wall, that Crawler's Forward
and Direction members (described here) will both point straight away from the wall. For
Crawlers started on the corner of rooms, things are a bit tricky - to the
values given above one of the following values must be added:
10 = Forward and Direction both face in the direction of the x-axis, i.e.
up for the upper corners , and down for the lower corners of the room;
20 = Forward faces in the direction of the x-axis as above,
Direction faces straight away from the room on the diagonal;
30 = Direction faces away on the diagonal, but Forward faces in the direction
of the y-axis, to the right if the corner is on the right side of the room,
to the left otherwise;
40 = Forward and Direction both face in the direction of the y-axis.
This is a bit of a hack - I first had Forward and Direction assigned randomly,
but found when actually designing dungeons that this would not do, so I put the
multiples of ten in there. To recapitulate, Crawlers in the center of rooms need a value
from 0 to 3, but for corner Crawlers this is illegal - they need one of the values from
10 to 40 added to that.
The style of rooms is determined through the following additive parameters:
1 = room has walls (all rooms with even style numbers lack walls!)
2 = corner doors are large
4 = corner doors are extra large
8 = center doors are large
16 = center doors are extra large
32 = corner doors have their center filled (making 2 smaller doors)
64 = center doors have a Crawler in their center
128 = there is a row of columns behind each center door in the room
256 = there is a row of columns parallel to each center door
512 = center doors have decoration type 1 outside
1024 = center doors have decoration type 2 outside
2048 = corner doors have decoration type 1 outside
4096 = corner doors have decoration type 2 outside
8192 = room has center pyramid
For example, a style value of 8337 = (8192 + 128 + 16 + 1) means that the room
has enclosing walls, a decorative center pyramid, and columns behind its extra large
center doors.
Finally, a delay of 5 means that all Crawlers attached to this room
will be created with an age of -50, which means they will remain dormant for 50
iterations, which gives Crawlers with lower delay a chance to build their walls first.
Placing rooms is a convenient and largely foolproof way of creating dungeon
structure, but it gives less control than is possible through individual
placement of wall tiles and Crawlers. For instance, all Crawlers placed as
part of a room must have the same delay. The program is written in such a way
that (barring bugs) it is impossible to block off part of the dungeon by
placing a room, with one exception: If you start off two Crawlers at
adjacent corners of a room, these Crawlers can join and block off the
dungeon - this happens with a substantial likelihood when both Crawlers head in the
same Direction, and with a very small likelihood when one of them
heads in this Direction and the other off on a diagonal.
In the above example it is possible to enter data for 4 rooms, but a smaller
number is OK also - however, rooms input must end with the lines:
div: 0; Xdiv: 0; Ydiv: 0; width: 0; lTC: 0; tC: 0; rTC: 0; rC: 0; rBC: 0;
bC: 0; lBC: 0; lC: 0; style: 0; delay: 0
div = 0 is not a room but indicates the end of room input
Next come a series of lines that position hand-placed
guaranteed-to-remain-open squares, wall tiles, and columns, which is straightforward:
Open square at ( 70 , 70 )
Open square at ( 0 , 0 )
(the value (0 , 0) is not an open square but terminates the series)
Wall tile at ( 47 , 58 )
Wall tile at ( 47 , 59 )
Wall tile at ( 0 , 0 )
(the value (0 , 0) is not a wall tile but terminates the series)
Column at ( 10 , 10 )
Column at ( 13 , 10 )
Column at ( 0 , 0 )
(the value (0 , 0) is not a column but terminates the series)
Next the initial WallCrawlers are placed. This method of placing Crawlers
allows for more flexibility and precision than the automatic placement on the
outside of rooms. It is of course possible to hand-place Crawlers on
the outside of room walls using this section of the rooms-file. Their starting
location is given with precise
dungeon coordinates, which run from 0 to (dimX - 1) for x, and 0 to
(dimY - 1) for y - thus in our 100 x 100 dungeon, a Crawler at (99 , 50)
starts in the middle of the bottom wall. Crawlers place no wall tile at their
starting location and are normally placed on top of a wall tile. The lines
for placing Crawlers look like this:
A Crawler starts at (x , y) = (99 , 50)
and this crawler will head in direction 14 with delay 0 and termination 1.
A Crawler starts at (x , y) = (0 , 0)
(the value (0 , 0) is not a crawler but terminates the series)
The "direction" parameter is the sum of two parameters that determine
Forward and Direction; the second digit determines Forward
according to:
1 = right, East, larger y-values
2 = down, South, larger x-values
3 = left, West, smaller y-values
4 = up, North, smaller x-values
The first digit determines Direction according to:
+0 = same as Forward
+10 = 45 degrees to the right of Forward
+20 = 90 degrees to the right of Forward
+30 = 45 degrees to the left of Forward
+40 = 90 degrees to the left of Forward
+50 = Direction = 0 (no preferred direction)
In our example, the value 14 means that this Crawler initially faces North,
and that its intended direction is NorthEast (which implies that only North and
East are legal values for the Forward heading of this Crawler during its
entire life).
A delay of n (n = 0, ... 9) means that the Crawler will remain dormant for
n * 10 iterations, during which other Crawlers can claim the dungeon space
for their walls. Since a generation lasts for 100 iterations, a Crawler with delay
9 will at age 10 face competition from all the numerous Crawlers of generation 1,
which will spring into action at that time. A delay value of 10 is also legal,
and means a random delay between 0 and 9.
Finally, the termination value can have the following meanings:
1 = leaves an opening at the end of its run
2 = leaves no opening
3 = is the first of an open/closed pair
4 = is the second of an open/closed pair
Open/closed pairs must always follow each other in the sequence of Crawlers,
and the program determines randomly which one of them is open (= leaves an opening
at the end of its run) and which is closed (leaves no opening). Open/closed pairs and
random delays are interesting and powerful options for dungeon design, and
are discussed in greater detail later.
Last (and probably least) we have the line
Outside walls sports 0 protuberances.
These are ornamental structures placed along the outer dungeon walls, which
have two purposes:
Some stats files create dungeons where there is a tendency to have a clear
pathway along the outside dungeon wall. Protuberances disrupt Crawlers that try
to crawl alongside the outside wall, and can be used to alleviate this problem.
Also, they are handy and good-looking starting points for WallCrawlers.
This concludes the discussion of the rooms-file.
...and about time too...
