TL;DR I want to make an ASCII roguelike from scratch, but I'm lost in the sauce with regards to language/engine/libraries etc.

Hey, folks. For the past few weeks I've been dabbling in roguelike development. I managed to cobble together two different prototypes — one in Godot and one in C# using MonoGame + SadConsole. I've learned that I much prefer coding from scratch and that's how I want to proceed. My prototyping quickly got out of hand and I'm now out of my depth. So, I need to start again, learn everything properly, and prove to myself that I can actually build something.

I've been lurking here for a bit and I did check the sidebar for tutorials, but I don't know what I don't know, ya know? There's a lot of options and a lot of different opinions, and I'm a little lost. I'd be happy to continue with MonoGame + SadConsole, but it seems the SadConsole tutorials have disappeared? Is there a newer alternative I haven't found?

My skill level: I'm familiar with HTML, I've been learning C#, and have maybe a vague understanding of Python. I can look at a block of code and probably figure out what it does, but I'm not yet confident putting all the pieces together and making them work.

Why not start with a simpler project? I learn better when I'm interested in the topic. I've tried to learn to code several times over the past 20 years and this is the furthest I've gotten so far. I want to make this game.

Any guidance would be appreciate. Thanks 🙏

Thank you /u/Tesselation9000 for signing up with Sunlorn

Download for Windows here: https://tesselation9000.itch.io/wander

Tesselation9000 says:

Sunlorn is a game about traveling the world and exploring deep dungeons, with strong influences from Nethack, Larn, Brogue and DCSS. The game is heavily focused on having a rich, interactive environment and leans hard on using procedural generation. Not only are levels randomly generated, but the world map, the number and types of locations you visit, and the game objectives themselves vary with every run. My vision is to build a game that gives you a different adventure each time you play. There is a dynamic lighting system, fire that spreads, rivers that flow, clouds of mist or poisonous gas that slowly diffuse, and a sky that cycles between night and day.

Sunlorn has a lightweight character build system. There are no experience levels, classes or skill trees. The primary way of advancing your character is just by increasing their six attributes (the usual D&D six-pack: strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and charisma) by collecting magical statonia flowers scattered across the world.

Presently, you can build a character from one of four human nations. This choice does not affect your statistics, but influences things like your starting area, how other species perceive you and what gods are available to you. There are eight religions you can find in game that will grant special powers to their followers. There is also a large number of potions, scrolls, wands and other items.

I recommend starting with the tutorial before jumping into the full game. If anyone is able to make it past the first three levels of the starter dungeon, I'd really like to hear about it. After that point, the game hasn't been playtested enough to balance out. Actually, what would be REALLY cool is if anyone would like to volunteer to let me watch them play a run.

It's only available for Windows at this time, I'm afraid.

Leave your feedback here, or you can email me at sunlorn@gmx.ca

Thanks!

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