| Management number | 219236278 | Release Date | 2026/05/03 | List Price | $90.00 | Model Number | 219236278 | ||
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Building Your Own Roguelike: A Practical Guide takes you on an authentic journey from your first playable prototype to a complete, functional roguelike game. This isn't a theoretical guide or a simplified tutorial—it's the real story of building Vanilla Roguelike over five years, complete with mistakes, breaking points, and architectural evolution.The Journey Begins with AlgorithmsThe book starts where the project began: with maze generation. You'll implement multiple algorithms—Binary Tree, Aldous-Broder, Recursive Backtracker, and Recursive Division—to understand graph theory, spanning trees, and procedural generation. Each algorithm teaches different principles: some create long corridors, others produce boxy mazes.The Architecture Problem: When Simple Stops WorkingEarly prototypes work fine when everything fits in one class. But as features multiply—combat, inventory, monsters, items, level transitions—the code becomes unmaintainable. This book takes you through the breaking point where the naive approach fails, helping you recognise the same problems in your own projects.You'll learn why Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture solves these problems. ECS isn't just a game development pattern—it's a fundamental approach to building scalable software. The book breaks down ECS into digestible pieces: entities as identifiers, components as data containers, and systems as behaviour processors.Building Complete Game SystemsThe middle chapters guide you through implementing real game systems: input handling, movement with collision detection, turn-based combat, inventory management, monsters, and event-driven architecture.Each system is built iteratively. You'll start with the simplest version that works, then add complexity as needed. Combat begins with basic attack and damage, then evolves to include combat menus and turn-based battles. Inventory starts with simple item storage.Real-World Lessons from Real MistakesWhat sets this book apart is its honesty about the development process. You'll learn about the breaking point where the original architecture couldn't support new features, the refactoring that saved the project, and the architectural decisions that enabled growth. These aren't idealised examples—they're real problems and real solutions from a five-year development journey.Why Build from Scratch?Using a game engine teaches you the engine. Building from scratch teaches you the fundamentals. This book focuses on understanding how games work at their core: how algorithms generate content, how architecture enables features, and how systems communicate. The knowledge transfers to any language, any platform, any project. The code examples use Ruby, but the concepts are language-agnostic.Who This Book Is ForThis book is perfect for intermediate to advanced programmers who want to understand game development, algorithms, and architecture through hands-on practice. Computer science students will find practical applications for graph theory, data structures, and design patterns. Game developers will gain deep understanding of ECS architecture and procedural generation.What You'll BuildBy the end of this book, you'll have built a complete roguelike game with procedural maze generation, turn-based combat, inventory management, monster spawning, level progression, and event-driven architecture. You'll understand the algorithms, architectural patterns, and development practices that make it all work. Read more
| XRay | Not Enabled |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 3.9 MB |
| Page Flip | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Not Enabled |
| Reading age | 12 - 18 years |
| Print length | 145 pages |
| Accessibility | Learn more |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Publication date | November 10, 2025 |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
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