To go with that I wrote a companion article "Designing for Mastery in Roguelikes" - Building roguelikes that leave room to demonstrate mastery even when facing extreme challenges in environments defined by RNG, procedural content, and permadeath.
https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2025/08/designing-for-mastery-in-roguelikes-w-roguelike-radio/
I was recently on Roguelike Radio for a talk that was just released today, discussing Cogmind and "Designing for Mastery": https://old.reddit.com/r/Cogmind/comments/1mwtg1u/roguelike_radio_ep_167_designing_for_mastery_with/
You kick the meat brick.
The meat brick knocks back the kobold. It falls into the pit.
I'm in a stomping mood.
You stomp the meat brick.
You consume the meat brick.
#GameDev #IndieDev #Love2D #PrismRL #Roguelike #RoguelikeDev
Interested in making a roguelike? Not sure how? r/RoguelikeDev is holding our 9th annual dev tutorial/code-along event!
https://old.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1luh8og/roguelikedev_does_the_complete_roguelike_tutorial/
#gamedev #tutorial #python #roguelikedev
Current status:
- 
Working on completing "Replis", a 1st person mystery solving/detectivework game #gamedev
- 
Slow work on MEGASTRUCTURES (post-cyberpunk #roguelike) I need to finish Replis before going back to normal speed #roguelikedev
- 
Finishing a set of live solo music pieces #musicmaker
Been seeing an increasing number of interesting roguelike projects pop up over the last couple months! Here's a WIP image from Mete (shared on the r/RoguelikeDev Discord here: https://discord.com/channels/205277826788622337/206169610284826626/1385705588272660620).
#roguelike #roguelikedev
#Cogmind Beta 15 "0bPrime" is released!
The epic conclusion to the UFD expansion is here, bringing with it a major new map, 100 new items, and Cogmind's 10th unique ending!
Full release notes and demo images: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/722730/view/520838311548289252
#roguelike #roguelikedev
Final #7drl sharing thread is up on the sub, with a bunch of cool new roguelikes already completed like Archipelago of Monsters, Holy Book, BOARD MASTER, and Unsure: https://old.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1j6yu9s/share_your_finished_2025_7drl/
7DRL 2025 coming to a close this weekend, been seeing some nice projects approaching completion, like these on the discord server from elliotbnvl, jacob_marks, and pecatus.
#7drl #roguelikedev
Dayum, Skotlaroc on the r/RoguelikeDev discord server has been working on some amazing enemy sprites for their game.
#roguelikedev
Neat WIP #roguelike shot shared by MarshalldotEXE on the r/RoguelikeDev Discord server today.
#roguelikedev
Several years ago I wrote a popular article describing technical and design issues associated with having creatures that occupy multiple cells in the grid-based world of a roguelike, with solutions.
A few months back I revisited the topic with a shorter followup to discuss additional relevant features, which today was made public here: https://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2024/09/multitile-actors-revisited/
I wrote a recap of the major features I completed in Chronicles from 2024 over on /r/roguelikedev and wrote a bit about plans for the coming year, enjoy!
https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1hyaszj/2025_in_roguelikedev_chronicles_iv_ebonheim
7DRL 2025 dates have been announced! Create a roguelike over 7 days from March 1~9: https://itch.io/jam/7drl-challenge-2025
#7drl #roguelike #roguelikedev
First Screenshot Saturday of 2025 and I don't have much to show, really. I'm very slowly working on my rogue-esque project and at the moment I'm knee deep in hell designing GUI and making it work. In parallel I'm pandering about inventory/combat systems.
"Cursebearer" by u/Noodles_All_Day has undergone an impressive 750 hours of work this year to put together quite a list of systems, with proper content hopefully coming this year.
https://old.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1hsytsm/2025_in_roguelikedev_cursebearer/
"Cursebearer is a traditional fantasy roguelike heavily influenced by Angband. It also has a heaping spoonful of inspiration drawn from TES III: Morrowind's mechanics and hilariously broken character build potential, GURPS' classless character system, and Diablo II's itemization."
#roguelikedev
"2025 in RoguelikeDev", our sixth annual month-long event in which devs share their progress from the last year, and plans for the next \o/
https://old.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1hqt1ek/2025_in_roguelikedev_a_january_event/
Get motivated for a a new year of #roguelike #gamedev :D
#roguelikedev
Multiple room styles are in. No special rooms yet, but they're on the list.
And for the last Screenshot Saturday of 2024, let me show you a "fancified" version of my current rogue-esque project. I added some of my fave post effects, which is very noticeable, but what is much less noticeable are two small enhancements: "pixel art" sampling shader to eliminate jagged lines from ASCII tiles (as seen in Karl Zylinski's video about using this shader in Odin/Raylib), and MSDF bitmap fonts that should look good no matter the scale and that are much more crisp and sharp than SDF (thanks to RedBlobGames who pointed me in this direction).
If you're gonna ask why did I bother with MSDF fonts just to smear it later with post-fx, the answer is "I don't know, don't call me out this harsh". :V
I went exploring the rabbit hole of roguelike localizations and seems like general consensus is that procedural text + localization is simply an unsolved problem. Most high-profile games do not feature any localization.
English is quite easy to generate programmatically, due to lack of grammatical gender or complex inflections. As a native Finnish speaker, I can't even fathom the complexity that'd go into making dynamic descriptions in my own language, with all the inflections.
