After a couple more days of poking around with Python, and the tutorial I discussed last post, I’ve come to a realization that is going to surprise some people. Programming is actually difficult to learn.

To be fair, it’s not like I didn’t already know this.  I tried a few years ago to learn a bit of Ruby.  And I did learn a bit of Ruby.  It doesn’t surprise me that it’s difficult for me to understand and apply certain things.  I expected that.

The part that does keep surprising me is the way that programming keeps feeling like the game Infinifactory.  We’ve talked about the game on the podcast before, but Infinifactory (developed by ZachTronics games) is a puzzle game that’s also supposed to be a sort of analogue for programming.  And it’s scarily accurate sometimes.   Especially the part where sometimes you can solve a puzzle in Infinifactory, and have no clue why or how to apply it later.

Case in point:

This was my attempt at taking the map generator I’d built using the tutorial (which originally created a simple Nethack style dungeon), and making what I thought would be a more restrictive algorithm in which none of the rooms could get within 5 spaces of each other.  As you can see, that didn’t quite work.

However, as you can see from my coloring of the map, it did give me an idea for a game, also inspired by watching someone play Atari Golf today:

I suppose that if one of the key pieces of advice for writers is to read voraciously and experience life deliberately, then something similar probably applies to game design.  Certainly, I had no idea that a golf game that’s older than I am might present me with an idea for a roguelike.

Currently, I’m still in the process of nailing down the look of the fairway.  Should it all be one flat tone like it is now?  Should it have dots or something to mark each movable space?  I think a lot of that will depend on how the design goes.

And what is the design?  Again,  another excellent question.  Really, two options present themselves around a golf-style roguelike.  I’ve been unable to find either being used before in this theme.

The first solution would be the obvious one – you have a single golf ball which is your weapon.  I guess it would work out a little bit like the game Titan Souls, but with a golf ball.  It would require the player setting up the ball so they can easily get to it the next time, and thinking about things like movement and time.    Perhaps the number of attacks it takes to kill the monster could be the par?

But what excites me far more is the idea of a golf roguelike that has no combat.  At least, no PLAYER combat.  There was a roguelike a few years ago called “Gruesome” (by Darren Grey of the Roguelike Radio podcast) which had a similar idea.  The player was a Grue, and touching an enemy instantly killed them.   The trick was that stepping into any tile that was light would instantly kill the player.  While devouring humans might sound combative, in terms of roguelike design, it plays much more like a puzzle game than a combat game.

Can the idea be pushed farther – making orcs, fire-breathing dragons and other such roguelike trappings into additional obstacles, alongside the standard golf hazards of sand traps, rough, and acid pits?

Only time will tell.