NetHack is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1982 game Hack, itself inspired by the 1980 game Rogue. The player takes the role of one of several pre-defined character classes to descend through multiple dungeon floors, fighting monsters and collecting treasure, to recover the "Amulet of Yendor" at the lowest floor and then escape.
Roguelike is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most roguelikes are based on a high fantasy narrative, reflecting their influence from tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
The Dungeons of Moria, usually referred to as simply Moria, is a computer game inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings. The objective of the game is to dive deep into the Mines of Moria and kill the Balrog. Moria, along with Hack (1984) and Larn (1986), is considered to be the first roguelike game, and the first to include a town level.
Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman with later contributions by Ken Arnold. Rogue was originally developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputer systems as a freely distributed executable. It was later included in the Berkeley Software Distribution 4.2 operating system (4.2BSD). Commercial ports of the game for a range of personal computers were made by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane under the company A.I. Design and financially supported by the Epyx software publishers. Additional ports to modern systems have been made since by other parties using the game's now-open source code.
Perlin noise is a type of gradient noise developed by Ken Perlin in 1983. It has many uses, including but not limited to: procedurally generating terrain, applying pseudo-random changes to a variable, and assisting in the creation of image textures. It is most commonly implemented in two, three, or four dimensions, but can be defined for any number of dimensions.
In video games, artificial intelligence (AI) is used to generate responsive, adaptive or intelligent behaviors primarily in non-playable characters (NPCs) similar to human-like intelligence. Artificial intelligence has been an integral part of video games since their inception in the 1950s. AI in video games is a distinct subfield and differs from academic AI. It serves to improve the game-player experience rather than machine learning or decision making. During the golden age of arcade video games the idea of AI opponents was largely popularized in the form of graduated difficulty levels, distinct movement patterns, and in-game events dependent on the player's input. Modern games often implement existing techniques such as pathfinding and decision trees to guide the actions of NPCs. AI is often used in mechanisms which are not immediately visible to the user, such as data mining and procedural-content generation.
In video games, a random map is a map generated randomly by the computer, usually in strategy games. Random maps are often the core of single and multiplayer gameplay, aside from story based campaigns that are often shipped with the game. Each new game presents an unknown map, providing a new experience to the player, and an even playing field in multiplayer gaming. Random maps typically have a certain theme - for example a naval random map with many small islands, or a 'gold rush' map with a large amount of gold in the center of the map. The type of random map may also influence the game's artificial intelligence, with the AI employing different strategies optimized for each random map.
Procedural modeling is an umbrella term for a number of techniques in computer graphics to create 3D models and textures from sets of rules. L-Systems, fractals, and generative modeling are procedural modeling techniques since they apply algorithms for producing scenes. The set of rules may either be embedded into the algorithm, configurable by parameters, or the set of rules is separate from the evaluation engine. The output is called procedural content, which can be used in computer games, films, be uploaded to the internet, or the user may edit the content manually. Procedural models often exhibit database amplification, meaning that large scenes can be generated from a much smaller number of rules. If the employed algorithm produces the same output every time, the output need not be stored. Often, it suffices to start the algorithm with the same random seed to achieve this.
A scenery generator is software used to create landscape images, 3D models, and animations. These programs often use procedural generation to generate the landscapes. If not using procedural generation to create the landscapes, then normally a 3D artist would render and create the landscapes. These programs are often used in video games or movies. Basic elements of landscapes created by scenery generators include terrain, water, foliage, and clouds. The process for basic random generation uses a diamond square algorithm.
In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include The Legend of Zelda (1986), Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Minecraft (2011).
In computer graphics, a procedural texture is a texture created using a mathematical description rather than directly stored data. The advantage of this approach is low storage cost, unlimited texture resolution and easy texture mapping. These kinds of textures are often used to model surface or volumetric representations of natural elements such as wood, marble, granite, metal, stone, and others.
The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike video game designed by independent developers Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. It was released in 2011 for Microsoft Windows, then ported to OS X, and Linux. The game's title and plot are inspired by the Biblical story of the Binding of Isaac. In the game, Isaac's mother receives a message from God demanding the life of her son as proof of her faith, and Isaac, fearing for his life, flees into the monster-filled basement of their home where he must fight to survive. Players control Isaac or one of the 6 other unlockable characters through a procedurally generated dungeon in a roguelike manner, fashioned after those of The Legend of Zelda, defeating monsters in real-time combat while collecting items and power-ups to defeat bosses and eventually Isaac's mother.
SpaceEngine is an interactive 3D planetarium and astronomy software developed by Russian astronomer and programmer Vladimir Romanyuk. It creates a 1:1 scale three-dimensional planetarium representing the entire observable universe from a combination of real astronomical data and scientifically accurate procedural generation algorithms. Users can travel through space in any direction or speed, and forwards or backwards in time. SpaceEngine is in beta status and up to version 0.9.8.0E, released in August 2017, it was available as a freeware download for Microsoft Windows. Version 0.990 beta was the first paid edition, released in June 2019 on Steam. The program has full support for VR headsets.
Dragon Fin Soup is a role-playing video game created by the independent development studio Grimm Bros. It is the studio's first title and was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita. It is influenced by roguelike games and uses procedural generation. The game has two modes: Story mode follows a story and is more like a typical role-playing game, while Survival mode skips the story and focuses on the surviving within the game and constrains players with permadeath—once the player character dies, the game must be restarted from the beginning.
No Man's Sky is a 2016 video game developed by the British development studio, Hello Games. No Man's Sky allows the player to partake in four principal activities—exploration, survival, combat, and trading—in a shared, deterministic, procedurally generated open universe, which contains over 18 quintillion planets each with their own unique environment and flora and fauna.
A roguelike deck-building game is a hybrid genre of video games that combines the nature of deck-building card games with procedural-generated randomness from roguelike games.
Caves of Qud is an early access roguelike role-playing video game developed by American studio Freehold Games set in an open world that is partially pre-made and partially randomly generated. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic science fantasy setting and is inspired by the pen-and-paper role-playing games Gamma World and Dungeons & Dragons.
Mistover is a 2019 roguelike dungeon crawler role-playing video game developed and published by Krafton for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4. Mistover is set in a ravaged world recovering from a mass invasion of monstrous creatures from another realm, and its storyline follows the journey of a party of adventuring heroes who are on a quest to discover the source of the invasion. Players navigate environments from an isometric perspective with a party of procedurally generated player characters drawn from a roster of eight character classes to fight monsters and acquire loot recovered from the exploration of levels. A phenomenon known as "mist" is prevalent throughout the game world and negatively influences its characters, monsters, and items.
