A few folks on #gamedev have talked me into taking on a little project: writing an article or two on some of the techniques I have used in Golem, and other projects, for random creation of levels. To that end, I have begun a small framework app that includes a map and an animated player character that can walk around the map. Simple tile based stuff, and it features a Lua scripting interface for generation of the map. It is intended as a simple framework for the discussion of various techniques. I started it last night, and expect to have it mostly completed tonight or tomorrow night (depending on how incapacitating my case of the flu becomes; I'm mildly miserable right now, and I get the feeling it's going to get worse). The app is really very simple, merely allowing the user to specify a map script (command-line based currently, and I really have no desire to do otherwise right now), and walk an animated character around the resultant level to see the results. I may add a switchable 'fly' mode for faster viewing of the entire map; I don't know yet.

I've scavenged some code from Golem, and written some code from scratch. It's a hackish mess as all my projects are [grin], but so far it works, and all I really need is a crude scriptable platform for demonstration purposes. I'll post again when it is completed and I have received feedback from a few folks who have said they'd go through and check things.

Anyway, now to brew up some concoction of cold and flu medications and see if I can finish this thing tonight...