Hi! I've been working on Tiles of the Nadirat for 11 months, with a two months of summer break when it was 35 degrees inside and my HDD started questioning the meanings of his digital life.

The idea came from a dream after trying Elin. When I woke up, I realized there might be unique foundation of traditiona roguelike in it.

The core idea is: Every step changes your stats.

Almost, every step. There are neutral tiles, but even stepping on them can change your build, if you trigger movement pattern combo.

With limited movement per level, picking the most efficient route requires thinking multiple steps ahead, which connects the game to chess, something I also enjoy playing.

I'll quote Bobby Fischer here:

"I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it's not degenerated down to memorization and prearrangement like it is today."

He said this when discussing his Chess960, where the starting positions are randomized. And yeah this basically is The Tiles of the Nadirat, with randomized board and aquisition of level up choices, you need to think about what is actually beneficial for your character in the situation you're currently in.

Things currently implemented in the playable demo, I will order them from "legendary" to "common":

• Procedural map where every step changes your stats, most of them permanently.
• Koan based riddles. These can have multiple correct answers. The system gives player a feedback, that can help player to understand, whether he is getting closer.
• Class specific interactions with map. Their passives change which tiles you value more.
• Dynamic ability costs. The cost changes depending on how you play.
• Movement patterns interact with items to trigger additional effects.
• Seasonal content, that changes how you play the game and further expand The Nadirat both story and gameplay wise.
• A character can get potentionally every ability in the game, if you choose to play endless mode.
• Enemies use the same ability system, they draw them from pools, creating unpredictable combinations.
• During run you can accumulate and combine lof of stacking passives.
• Hand-drawn graphics and original soundtrack composed by Jan Boleslav Kladivo.

Tiles of the Nadirat is currently in demo version and this things are yet to be seen:

• 64 classes with additional ways of interacting with the map. The classes will change the rules enough, to a point that it will feel almost like different game. For example, Spacewalker changes how wormholes are valued and used during exploration.
• Boss will react to choices made on level up.
• New procedural map generation that will further change how the player evaluates routes by adding some uncertainty.
• Expanding The Nadirat through new mechanics and worldbuilding.

Link to demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5315280/Tiles_of_the_Nadirat_Demo/

I'd love if you tried it, and I'm especially interested to hear what you think about these systems.

Game design musings, and deliberately provocative title.

Many RLs feature a large overworld connecting multiple dungeons, cities with shops, quest locations, etc. Theoretically, this allow for non-linear, open-world exploration, and hopefully a deeper game experience than the classical vertical dungeon. In practice, though, areas/dungeons will have various difficulty levels, such that there is effectively an ideal order to visit them, which players will rarely stray from. I wonder if, ultimately, it all boils down to a traditional dungeon (maybe with some branches). Do you know games where the open/over-world introduces genuinely new dynamics that differs from dungeon delving?

So I "hand-coded" my game for about three years, then starting early this year got into using github copilot on and off. It's honestly been great. I do not "vibe code" as I don't trust it not to make a mess of my baby, and what I do have it do I review carefully. I still understand how it all works. When bugs occur I can often sniff them out and fix them myself.

I mainly use it when I know exactly what I want, and how I want to do it. It mainly means less typing. Occasionally I'll ask it for advice or guidance on how to architect or solution for something, but it's mainly a junior dev/code monkey.

But at this point good chunks of my game contain AI generated code. Again, stuff I pretty much would have written anyway, just churned out faster.

But now I'm approaching a point where I want to start showing my game to the public (I know, should have done that after year 1, catching up now) and I'm looking at that checkbox that, if clicked, i presume will have me thrown into the bucket with all the vibe coded AI-slop.

I do not and will not use it for art, music, or writing. Again, just code I would have written anyway, that I review and understand.

do I have to click the box?

As usual, post what you've done for the week! Anything goes... concepts, mechanics, changelogs, articles, videos, and of course gifs and screenshots if you have them! It's fun to read about what everyone is up to, and sharing here is a great way to review your own progress, possibly get some feedback, or just engage in some tangential chatting :D

Previous Sharing Saturdays

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to say that my solo project which released on itch.io a few years ago is getting a massive update and a Steam release.

Warlock: Age of Entropy is a roguelike that focuses primarily on resource management and tactical combat. It doesn't have extremely complex rulesets or deep character building (like ToME for example) - but it does have 15 procedurally-generated floors full of dangerous enemies and interesting items and spells. Because there's no health or mana regeneration over time, every fight in the game is effectively an optimization problem, where the player has to decide how (and if) an encounter is to be fought. One playthrough for a skilled player takes about 90 minutes.

Since releasing the free version, I've added much better support for fullscreen (with pixel-perfect graphics instead of an ugly stretch-to-screen), a worship system with five gods who drastically change playstyle (one prevents you from using attacks entirely!), a new final boss, and lots more content in the form of spells, items, enemies, QoL and accessibility features.

The engine is a fairly typical python-tcod stack. One thing I struggled with was how to get pixel-perfect sprites at a variety of resolutions without blowing up the text to be gigantic (since libtcod's legacy path allows one tileset at one tile size per window.) My solution was using three console layers, a Map console with sprites only, a UI console (16 px text), and an Overlay console sitting on top of the Map layer for effects.

The game is releasing on October 27th - if it sounds interesting to you, please give me a Wishlist; that really helps me out with visibility.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt90LKJ7yoQ
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5267500/Warlock_Age_of_Entropy/

Thanks again to everyone who took part in our tenth annual code-along event, and to those who were helping field questions both here and (mostly) on Discord, which continues to be a pretty active place for roguelike developers year round. Special thanks to /u/KelseyFrog for hosting, /u/HexDecimal for his ongoing work on libtcod, and /u/TStand90 for writing much of the main iteration of the tutorial we've been using.

This year we had one new tutorial declared alongside the event, down from last year's five. Although it wasn't finished, it got pretty far: Rust+Bevy Tutorial by /u/Kurald.

Some stats from the 2026 event:

• 33 unique participants who posted at least once
• 21 with public repos
• 13 languages represented
• 20 different primary libraries used
• 4 projects confirmed completed through at least the tutorial steps

Of the total number of known participants this year, 38% followed along with libtcod and Python, with the rest using something else. While the percentage completion rate was lower this year (so far!), as usual a fair number have just fallen behind and are still making progress...

Compare stats from previous years here:

• 2017
• 2018
• 2019
• 2020
• 2021
• 2022
• 2023
• 2024
• 2025

I've updated the Tutorial Tuesday wiki page with the latest information and links, including some screenshots for those who finished and provided them. I also highlighted repos for completed projects. Let me know if you have a repo link you'd like to add, screenshots for a project that reached completion, or have since completed the tutorial (or complete it later at any time!).

Languages

• C
• C#
• C++
• GDScript
• Go
• Godot 4
• Javascript
• Lua
• Python 3
• Ruby
• Rust
• TypeScript
• Zig

Top 3 languages by percent use: Python (23%), C++ (17%), Rust/Javascript (tied @13%) (a surprising show from C++ this year!)

Libraries

• Bevy
• DragonRuby
• EnTT
• G3N
• GoRogue
• Godot 4
• libtcod
• McRogueFace
• parcel
• pygame-ce
• python-tcod
• ratatui
• ROT.js
• Raylib
• SDL2
• SDL3
• SadConsole
• sola-raylib
• tcod-ecs
• Usagi Engine

Top 3 libraries by percent use: libtcod (18%), SDL (15%), Raylib (12%) (big drop from libtcod itself this year, though still top)

(I've bolded the above list items where at least one project with a repo was completed with that item. You can compare to last year's lists here.)

Sample screenshots by participant:

• Admirable-Evening128 (TypeScript/ROT.js/parcel)
• haveric (Javascript)
• level27geek (Lua/Usagi Engine)
• mariobadr (C/SDL3)
• redblobgames (Javascript)

EDIT: In the meantime I'm fiddling through the "old libtcod" docs here: https://libtcod.github.io/docs/index2.html

If it's just a disturbance in the force then fair enough. But I can't get to RogueBasin for the tutorial.

I'm starting with a bare c++ project with a libtcod install and I'm going to fiddle my way through the python3 version. But I'd like to go native if reasonable.

The program I'm developing is called pocket workstation, you can follow my daily progress on bsky @ ylop3d.bsky.social

As usual, post what you've done for the week! Anything goes... concepts, mechanics, changelogs, articles, videos, and of course gifs and screenshots if you have them! It's fun to read about what everyone is up to, and sharing here is a great way to review your own progress, possibly get some feedback, or just engage in some tangential chatting :D

Previous Sharing Saturdays

Hi, I've created a small prototype of programmable magic for my roguelike. The idea is that the player constructs a sequence of syllables that determine various parameters of a spell. For example, a player could easily create a spell that explodes through walls if they use the right movement syllables. Currently, the game has three scales:

Health (HP) - determines the character's health.

Action Points (AP) - Each syllable entered (or rather, its "-" separator), as well as its deletion, costs 1 AP. Moving around the map also costs 1 AP. When the player runs out of AP, the world takes over.

Sanity (SP) - The main resource for magic. Each spell costs a certain amount of sanity; if it drops to zero, the player pays for subsequent spells with their HP.

I'm using C# and Raylib-cs for development. I plan to rewrite the engine in the future, as this is essentially my first time doing this, and I'm eager to fix some issues, as I'm already starting to see some kinks (for example, changing entity coordinates is quite inconvenient). Syllables are also currently hardcoded, and I plan to write a syllable generator that will select new syllables for spells with each new run

So I'm a student working on my final degree project: a turn-based, grid-based dungeon crawler made in Godot 4 with procedurally generated levels. It has some persistent progression between runs, so it's closer to a roguelite, but my questions are about procedural generation, which I figured fits here. So far I've got a BSP generator working, light occluders, and the player spawning in the center of a room. (Known issue: walls render flat grey when lit, still working on that.)

Before making more stuff I kinda need to see what I can realistically make without being too ambitious. I want to make one good level with 5 enemies: 4 normal and 1 boss. The designs are by my artist friend Saúl, and I'll probably use some free assets for animations for now.

I want rooms to feel lived-in instead of empty (wardrobes, chests, beds, and now and then something rare). The setting is a 17th-century asylum, if that helps picture it.

My rough plan is a weighted prop table per room type, props placed along the walls, doorways kept clear, and a reachability check afterwards. I'd also like the boss to always end up in the room farthest from spawn by path distance.

A few things I'm unsure about:

Does that plan sound sane, or is there a cleaner way people usually go about it?

How do you make rare items show up "sometimes" without it feeling random or unfair?

Any gotchas once props start affecting line of sight or lighting?

Is one polished level with 5 enemies a realistic scope for a final project?

Any advice is welcome, thanks!

Are there any roguelike games where, while you are playing, you can encounter other players—in this case, NPCs?

I was imagining how cool a game could be with fictional players (bots?) that could be hostile (PK) or neutral (wanting to trade or do quests together), but also interacting with the dungeon (farming).

I was trying to code a roguelike and it was frustrating me o much I was having AI assist me, I did some googling and also talked to a friend who took game design and Dev at college , they suggested trying the real PY versus ai . Its working way better than I expected, its only 1 room, and a few items , but IT WORKS! thanks

As usual, post what you've done for the week! Anything goes... concepts, mechanics, changelogs, articles, videos, and of course gifs and screenshots if you have them! It's fun to read about what everyone is up to, and sharing here is a great way to review your own progress, possibly get some feedback, or just engage in some tangential chatting :D

Previous Sharing Saturdays

I've been making a weird little old-school roguelike called VOIDLING, and I thought "heck, why not. seeing what reddit can do".

You can play it here: playvoidling.dev

The game is deliberately built around strange characters, encounters, abilities and interactions as you descend through its 100 floors.

So here's the challenge:

Design a character.

I'll pick the best / weirdest / funniest / most interesting idea and actually turn them into a playable character in Voidling.

You don't need to be a programmer or game designer. I'm much more interested in a good idea.

Character template

Name:
What should this character be called?

What it looks like:
A description of their appearance. Pixel-art friendly descriptions are particularly welcome.

Starting stats:
Generally speaking, what are they good (and/or bad) at?
For example: high HP, weak ranged damage, lots of strength, poor defence, etc.

Melee quirk:
Something unusual about how they fight up close.

Long-range quirk:
Something unusual about their ranged attacks.

Special ability:
One distinctive ability that makes this character play differently from the others.

You can be serious, ridiculous, broken, cursed, experimental, or somewhere in between.

Some examples from the game

There are already characters with very different playstyles, although many of them are deliberately hidden behind progression, so you may have to play for a while to encounter them.

For example:

The Wrestler
A big melee-focused character who gets up close and personal."

The Evoker
Built around summoning skeletons.

The Scav
A character whose strength comes from a placeable, portable turret that can be upgraded.

You get the gist.

Those are deliberately just a couple, I'd rather not spoil all the other hidden stuff.

The important bit

If I really like your idea, I'll make it.

I'll adapt it to fit the game's mechanics and pixel-art style where necessary, but the core concept will come from you.

And if you want to make something particularly strange, please do.

Play it. Break it. Then design me a character.

Name:
Looks like:
Starting stats:
Melee quirk:
Long-range quirk:
Special ability:

Hi everyone! I am pleased to announce the 2026 release of NetWhack.

We have a roguebasin page discussing some history of the game, which was first released in 1997.

Play it now: https://www.netwhack.ca (note: code is "rogueima0" to prevent spam)

About this game: I originally wanted to write a C++ nethack. As the internet grew I wanted to have a roguelike that I could play on the internet and on any device. So I ended up rewriting it in Java. It took a long time and we ended up moving away from a pure nethack experience, but I am very happy with how it turned out. One of the design goals I wanted to achieve was to offer a playtime (hours of play) that was somewhere between Akalabeth and Ultima I. I think I succeeded.

I would be honored if you would play and critique my game!

For anyone who wants to help betatest, I have played my own game extensively and tried to balance it, but I think this is a very difficult roguelike experience. I am unsure how the pacing and plot will land when people start to play. Please let me know how far you get in the game or where you are getting stuck. Thanks.

Once again that's https://www.netwhack.ca -- play free today!

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who participated! As always it's been fun!

This is the end of RoguelikeDev Does The Complete Python Tutorial for 2026. Share your game, share screenshots and repos, brag, commiserate. How did it go? Where do you go from here?

I encourage everyone who has made it this far to continue working on your game. Everyone is welcome to (and really should ;) ) participate in Sharing Saturday.

Feel free to enjoy the usual tangential chatting. If you're looking for last week's or any other post, the entire series is archived on the wiki. :)

Hello! I started working on Dungeons of Akalawich back in late 2024. I ended up putting it aside for a while, but eventually came back to finish it.

I started making it because I wondered what a roguelike might have looked like on the NES. It also became the project where I learned the basics of coding with GameMaker.

Features:

• Turn-based gameplay
• Procedurally generated dungeons
• 30 floors across 6 biomes
• Permadeath and local high-score tracking
• 3 classes and 7 playable races
• Attributes, weapon skills, perks, and learnable spells
• 70+ enemies, including bosses
• 200+ items
• Environmental effects
• Merchants, shrines, traps, and lootable structures
• Keyboard and controller support

The game is free here:

https://retriondev.itch.io/dungeons-of-akalawich

I’ll keep fixing bugs if people find them, but I probably won’t make any major updates. I want to take what I learned and move on to a different project.

If anyone tries it, let me know what you think.

To give more context, I'm a Golang dev, currently maintaining a hypervisor in a VPS company.

BUT GOD DAMN Go is such an annoying language for making a game like this.

I would realistically be more comfortable with something like C# for a project of this nature. I could possibly get along with C or Lua even, but I don't know enough python (nor do I like to know) to use it extensively.

Also, do most people prefer a GUI that simulates a terminal, rather than messing around with terminals, noisy input, compatibility, fonts etc?