I asked this several years ago (here on gamedev.net), and I tinkered with it off and on, but real life took over. So hope there is fresh blood out there to tackle this.

All my terrain generators are too random. What I am looking for is a function like

generateLand(x,y) // where x= width, y= height

And the end result would look something like:

However, do not need color, I can ad this. but when I do it, it is just random characters. no rhyme or reason. I cannot believe I cannot find a tutorial on this anywhere, or even scripts (lots of side scrolling ones, but no top down).

Think dwarf fortress but only a half dozen characters instead of a ton - like DF LOL

Any language is ok, I should be able to convert it. Current.y I am playing around with qb64 - love it.

Thanks again

This is a such specific question that I don't beliefe there is something like a tutorial or working project you simply could overtake. You could instead read into general terrain generation, for example in this thread

https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/692945-creating-a-3d-world-for-an-rpg/​

and convert it to work with an ASCII engine. I however have been looking at some project which tried to bring the 80s/902 charm back to modern languages like ASCIIEngine or the Console-Graphics project which is rendering 3D ASCII like seen in this YouTube video

but none of them is really using anything further than rendering. I think looking at general terrain/map generation is your best bet to get started

This I have been doing, but all of them are 3D, or hi res, not ASCII. the other tutorials I found are of side scrolling terrain, not what I was looking for. side-scrollingside-scrolling

Yet as far as the 80's up to even modern games like DF, you can still find top-down ASCII procedural terrain like the image in my OP.

It is odd. I would have thought this would be a simple script, so I don't feel bad now hahaha