
Dungeon Generation in Diablo 1 - noad
https://www.boristhebrave.com/2019/07/14/dungeon-generation-in-diablo-1/
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jjjensen90
I developed/run a private server for the game that many members of the Diablo
team made after Diablo II (Hellgate: London) and the same technique is used
for random dungeon generation, but using 3D assets and 2d flat floormap shapes
to make the combinations. In fact, it's even called the same thing, DRLG!

Sometimes the game tries a few thousand combinations when a player enters a
dungeon before being satisfied by the results (there are configurable
constraint sets).

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SN76477
Hellgate: London is fun!! I haven't played it in a long time though.

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slfnflctd
The random dungeon generation was, for me, absolutely the top killer feature
of the game and was the main thing that kept me coming back through so many
replays.

For some reason, not a single other similar game I've played has had the same
effect on me. Maybe there's bias going on (obviously I was younger then), but
I've played a huge number of games since, and not a single one quite scratched
the same itch. I will be saving this article.

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mysterydip
Did Diablo II or III have the same draw on you?

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slfnflctd
They really didn't. I can't fully pinpoint why, but it had something to do
with the combination of the level and all its contents being randomized a
certain way, which from what I experienced of the sequels wasn't replicated
enough for me.

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nwienert
Funny but as a kid I devoured and adored D2. I played it many many times
through. Later I decided to try D1 and I couldn’t get past how slow it felt,
and in some ways primitive.

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jsgo
I loved both for different reasons.

Diablo 2 was a bit more on the rails to me: if I play a specific amount of
time, I can acquire the specific pieces of gear that I want for a specific
build. Diablo 1 it felt like you were chasing pieces, but grand scheme of
things, you just wanted the best in slot more often than not. Story was more
there too and the quests appreciable. They didn’t phone in the sequel and
really delivered a great game.

Diablo 1, however, I enjoyed stacking Intelligence as much as possible so that
I could have pretty substantial levels of casting skills from books (since you
had to have x amount of points in it for the next level book to work). In that
way, it felt like you could have a God Character in a way that D2’s 20 max
assignable (more could be gained as mods on gear) didn’t. You had to also work
at that, which felt rewarding.

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elefanten
I don't think I've heard Diablo called a roguelike before. It's got the
dungeon crawling and procedural generation, but the permanent death seems to
be one of the most quintessential features of the genre. Diablo does not have
that.

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kbumsik
There is the permanent death. Though Diablo 1 doesn't have such system, there
has been Hard Core mode since Diablo 2.

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elefanten
Yeah, fair. But that's an optional niche game mode and this piece is about
Diablo 1.

Another comment linked the creator's postmortem; he said he was influenced by
roguelikes but specifically called out that Diablo doesn't have permadeath as
opposed to roguelikes. His original design doc included permadeath, but it
didn't make it far into production.

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theandrewbailey
I don't think any of this was mentioned in Brevik's postmortem.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc)

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_iyig
It blew my mind a little when he said the name “Diablo” came from Mt. Diablo,
which sits practically on top of Silicon Valley.

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swivelmaster
It's really not that close (and not very big, either).

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falsedan
Calling Wang tiles “marching squares” will confuse the heck out of any
graphics programmer.

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BorisTheBrave
I called it marching squares because that is what it is. It takes an array of
bits, and for each group of 4 of them, finds one of 16 cases.

It's not wang tiles - Wang tiles do not actually specify how you pick them,
and the diablo tile sets do not fit together the way that wang tiles do.

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falsedan
That’s the algorithm, sure. The tiles aren’t marching squares though, and
calling them after how they were generated is confusing! If they produced
rectangular or other non-square tiles would you still insist on not calling
them Wang tiles?

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BorisTheBrave
I'm not sure what you are expecting. I'm describing the algorithm used, so
yes, I used the terminology of the algorithm.

Wang tiles doesn't say anything specific about the arrangment of tiles as
there are many tilesets that have the Wang Tile property.

And Diablo tiles aren't wang tiles, it would be inaccurate to describe them
so. It's not to do with the shape, it's to do with connectivity. You can have
a floor tile north-west of a wall tile, you can have dirt north-west of a
wall, you can have floor north-west of floor, but you cannot have dirt north
west of floor. Wang tiles do not permit restrictions like that.

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falsedan
> _I 'm not sure what you are expecting._

> _The tiles aren’t marching squares though, and calling them after how they
> were generated is confusing!_

I don’t understand how this could be misunderstood by someone reading in good
faith. I think that, if a reader remarks “this is confusing because…”, you
shouldn’t tell them they’re wrong and it’s not confusing.

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Hitton
As a kid I never thought about it's level design, but retroactively I have
huge respect for the developers (and to the author of the article for bring it
to me).

I wonder if such things are taught in today's game design courses.

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JabavuAdams
No. Kids going through game programs can barely program, except for a few
outliers. The courses tend to be quite lightweight, and the programs tend to
be very non-selective. They tend to be marketed to and attract poor students
who couldn't get into / don't see the value in a real university.

Instructors may be aware of these techniques but would be hard-pressed to turn
them into assignments that wouldn't fail all but a couple of people in the
class.

