xungeons/README.md

Small Dungeon Crawler Specification

 _____   ____     ____   _____
/ ___|  |  _ \   / ___| / ___|  Small
\___ \  | | | | | |     \___ \  Dungeon
 ___) | | |_| | | |___   ___) | Crawler
|____/  |____/   \____| |____/  Specification

Source Code

General:

• This specification can be implemented in any programming language and in any formatting style.
• True aim is that it should be minimal in terms of source lines of code, and resource usage when possible.
• All memory leaks should be cleaned, which can be checked with Valgrind, compiler warnings aren't taken in account.
• Some APIs, drivers and libraries like SDL2, Raylib, OpenGL and Vulkan leak memory, those leaks are forgiven.
• Also, cleaning up all compiler and/or linter warnings is a benefit, but is not required at all.

Scoring:

• As this was intended as a challenge for various programming languages and programmers, scoring rules are:

+1 points per single gameplay element definition.
-1 points per memory leak of 10 bytes.

• Then, final score is the total number of points divided by count of lines of code.

Theme

General:

• Theme can be anything, it's up to developer to choose it and decide if it'll be consistent or not.
• Some examples given here are using "default" dungeon crawler theme of fantasy world inspired by Tolkien.
• However, you can have future theme, medieval one or weeb one with battlemaids and catgirls...

Gameplay

General:

• Note that further explanations for gameplay elements are given separately, in text below for consistency.
• Game screen layout consists of 2 panels, on the left is world state preview, on the right is player state preview.
• World state is updated on every action (key pressed), unless some menu is active, which includes bots too.
• Default keyboard action mapping must be consistent across games that follow this specification.
• Important gameplay elements must be implemented, and the amount of them is up to developer to decide.

Default keyboard action mapping:

Use        - KP0 - O
Inventory  - KP- - I
Wait       - KP5 - .
Up         - KP8 - K
Down       - KP2 - J
Left       - KP4 - H
Right      - KP6 - L
Up+Left    - KP7 - Y
Up+Right   - KP9 - U
Down+Left  - KP1 - B
Down+Right - KP3 - N

Examples:

• Game following this specification can be implemented in terminal or graphical window, as developer decides.
• It's not important if game has 3 or 300 types of certain game element, it's important that it has them.
• Lastly, it's important to have most minimal implementation in terms of source lines of code, for any language.
• As this isn't obfuscated code challenge, code should be readable to the person who wrote it, no harm in that.
• Person with too much free time could implement this specification in 1 line of valid C code if wanted.

Elements:

• Attributes influence core points (health, mana, stamina...) of party members and bots.
• Skills are passive abilities influencing item usage modifiers (damage, condition, proficiency...).
• Effects are active abilities applying some function or procedure (spells, curses, shrines...).
• Items cause that temporarily or permanent increase or decrease any previously defined element.
• Equipments are items that can be equiped to party members or bots (weapons, armours, jewelry...).
• Currency (gold, coins, gems...) is collectively gathered and can be used for trading items and equipment.
• Levels are procedurally generated when new layer is entered, more about them below.

Player

General:

• Player controls party of 6 characters (like in Wizardry), as one group in turn-based combat.
• Each party member has its own attributes, skills, effects and equipments.
• Collectively, party has currency and inventory (item array), which can be shared.
• All party members are randomly generated, they have randomized attributes, skills, effects and equipment.
• Players party is preserved when entering new level layer, but gone after losing, aka permadeath.

Enemies

General:

• When an enemy is in view range of player, they'll start following until they enter the battle state.
• Enemies always leave random amount of coins, and randomly spawn some amount of items.
• Attack decisions are made by attacking ranged party members first, then melee party members.

Dungeons

General:

• Every dungeon level is 2D matrix (tilemap or gridmap) of random width and height in arbituary limitation.
• Procedural generation is up to developer to implement, but level layouts and elements must always be randomly generated.
• Maximum width and height limitation is undefined (developer choice), minimum width and height must be respectively 80 and 40.
• Elements of dungeon are walls (clip), floors (noclip), decorations (clip/noclip) and special elements (defined below).
• Special elements of dungeons execute game state changing arbituary function when 'use' command is given.
• Difficulty is tied to number of levels passed, it increments with each level, and generates rarer dungeon elements.
• Player can go down to next level, but never return to previous level, no stair-hopping allowed.

Terminal extension:

• Basic VT100 escape codes should be used to output buffers in colours, offset the cursor and change screen size.
• Visually distinct colours and styles should be used to express different game elements (defined below).
• Terminal should be updated in real-time and include size changes, using curses-like approach to print at terminal size offset.

@           CYAN   BLINK   - Player (blinking for easier recognition)
#           GREY   REVERSE - Wall (biome can be expressed with colour)
.           GREY   REVERSE - Floor (biome can be expressed with colour)
>           PINK   BOLD    - Stairs (go to next level)
}           PINK   BOLD    - Portal (go to random noclip tile)
a...z|A...Z RED    ITALIC  - Enemies (weaker lowercase, stronger uppercase)
$           WHITE  BOLD    - Coins (random number)
)           YELLOW NORMAL  - Shooting weapons (bow, crossbow, sling...)
|           YELLOW BOLD    - Piercing weapons (spear, halberd, lance...)
!           YELLOW BOLD    - Slashing weapons (sword, greatsword, dagger...)
?           YELLOW BOLD    - Swinging weapons (axe, mace, flail...)
/           YELLOW ITALIC  - Magical weapons (staff, wand...)
-           GREEN  NORMAL  - General jewelry (ring, amulet, earing...)
]           GREEN  BOLD    - General armours (complete set)
=           BLUE   NORMAL  - General potions (affect attributes)
%           BLUE   BOLD    - General manuals (affect skills)
;           BLUE   ITALIC  - General scrolls (affect spells)

Graphical extension:

• Every tile (2D sprite) should be of same dimensions for pixel art, to form a grid, loaded as a spritesheet or individual sprites.
• Optionally, sprite-overdraw can be used to draw on top of player sprite, for example armours and weapon sprites.
• Unlike with terminal extension rules, there are no visual rules here, it's up to common sense of the developer to make them.

Battles

• Each party member gets the turn to do one combat action (defined below), then one of the enemies does the same.
• Battle is over when all party members or enemies are dead, and battle menu is hidden until next battle.
• Combat actions are attack, block, shoot (ranged), apply (effect), use (item) and wait (skip).
• Attack, block and shoot use stamina points, which can be recovered on wait or when party is resting after the battle.
• Additionally, combat actions can use other core points, which can be recovered slowly but automatically after the battle.