Procedural generation

Checkerboard islands

One final pastime for which I've used the random, hand-drawn checkerboards I've been writing about is generating lo-fi island maps.

To start, generate a large grid. This is one is about 100×100:

A very large grid.

Starting at the upper right, color alternate regions blue, but only if they border the edge of the grid:

Alternate regions touching the border colored blue, representing ocean.

That makes ocean. Regions touching ocean are beach:

Alternate regions touching ocean colored yellow, representing beach.

Regions touching beach are rocks:

Alternate regions touching beach colored brown, representing rock.

Regions touching rocks are grass:

Alternate regions touching rock colored green, representing grass.

And regions touching grass are forest:

Alternate regions touching grass colored dark green, representing forest.

All other regions are mountains:

Alternate regions that remain colored black, representing mountains.

Then repeat the process with the still-unshaded regions, ocean to beach to rocks to grass to forest, and finally mountains:

The same process repeated for the unshaded regions.

Here's the final map, without grid lines:

The same drawing, without grid lines.

February 2022