Procedural generation

Variations on hand-drawn dungeons

In the previous post I showed how I generated dungeon-looking patterns like this by hand:

A random checkerboard grid.

The irregular design comes from the random choice of dots inside the perimeter. The above pattern includes dots at about 50% of the possible locations, so it's natural to ask how the pattern changes if we increase or decrease the number of dots. More dots results in more squares and narrow passages:

Using more interior dots creates winding corridors.

while fewer dots creates a stronger checkerboard design:

Using fewer interior dots creates more of a checkerboard.

Choosing dots non-randomly can yield repeating patterns:

Using non-random interior dots can create patterns.

or designs that look like they might be optical illusions:

A checkerboard that is somewhat uncomfortable to look at.

February 2022