Let a billion videogames bloom

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a thematic edition of the newsletter. We haven't had one in some time. See, I've spent the past couple of weeks learning a new programming language, under the guise of reviving an old rogue-lite prototype. You might have noticed my previous posts here:

• C++ versus Genie for Python programmers
• From Python to Genie

That was a good opportunity to clean up and fix the original Glittering Light prototype, that only a few friends got to play so far. If you did, the main differences are:

• the fog of war now works, and it's great to see the dungeon light up as you move around (in a terminal emulator!)
• code is much cleaner, and makes use of advanced Python features I somehow only learned this spring.

Now to see about the native port, and hopefully next year Tomb of the Snake can get the same treatment. Meanwhile, let's see the news:

• for one thing, Slashie covers the Roguelike Celebration 2020 and the inventive way people adapted to the online-only format;
• and then we have a write-up on How Arthurian tragedy drives the design of Pendragon. Which if I understand correctly is a kind of narrative roguelike/tactics game? Good to see unusual combinations like that in 2020.

That's all for today, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. See you next time!

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