Advanced Heroquest dungeon generator

[Mophus]

I've made an excel-based generator (german), which shows the content of a corridor or room. AHQ/TitD rules and all the monster matrices are considered. So the generator gives the type of room, special rules, doors, monsters and treasure. This is still a great improvement compared to consulting all the tables and rolling dice on them.

Of course there is no visualisation possible. So I'm thinking about a "real" dungeon generator for AHQ, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Does such a generator already exist, or is there a program which can be edited to use the AHQ rules/tiles?

[Sjeng]

No idea, not a programmer, but that would certainly be interesting.

[Baylor_OgreBane]

I know of no such thing....
You know what, if it turns out that there isn't then this could be a great opportunity for you and maybe sorcerersapprentice might do the tile/graphics for you. A profitable endeavour indeed!

[Mophus]

Ok, I've found a AHQ generator on BGG. The graphic is very basic, but the rules behind seem for a first look correct:

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/12925/ahq-map-generatorzip

The error message at the start can be ignored. Just load one of the supplied *.tab files (the separated files in the folder "tab" don't work for me - instead choose on of the maindirectory like "dark.tab").

[Baylor_OgreBane]

post a link so I/we can have a look.

[whitebeard]

I've made an excel-based generator (german), which shows the content of a corridor or room.

Of course there is no visualisation possible.

It is actually quite doable to draw boxes in Excel XY chart windows. If you were to color code the rooms in a list, then you can draw the boxes in the proper spot on a large chart and reference the colored entry for the room description (the part you already have).

What stops the random dungeon (rolls or drawn from a deck) from winding back on itself?

[Mophus]

... draw the boxes in the proper spot on a large chart ...

I don't think this is possible, as excel can't address information to empty fields. Of course drawing is limited possible with excel. But a random dungeon with junctions and random placed doors and rooms? - That must be VBA magic.

What stops the random dungeon (rolls or drawn from a deck) from winding back on itself?

That's another important question, which is from my point of view impossible for a whole dungeon with excel.

AHQ solves this finally with deadends/fakedoors and a second search for secret doors in already checked areas.

[whitebeard]

... draw the boxes in the proper spot on a large chart ...

I don't think this is possible, as excel can't address information to empty fields. Of course drawing is limited possible with excel. But a random dungeon with junctions and random placed doors and rooms? - That must be VBA magic.

What stops the random dungeon (rolls or drawn from a deck) from winding back on itself?

That's another important question, which is from my point of view impossible for a whole dungeon with excel.

AHQ solves this finally with deadends/fakedoors and a second search for secret doors in already checked areas.

I wrote a full reply, but of course it was somehow lost when I asked for a "preview".

Nothing is impossible. It is easier than you think. An XY plot with 50 reserved elements (50 sets of 10? XY points). Leave them blank. Then fill in one set, and it draws interactively for you. A green square here, a blue rectangle there... Now connect the rest up.

I have done this for an Excel visualization of a vehicle dynamics simulation (time lapse). It gets laughs and dropped jaws from my co-workers. But it's actually not that difficult. No VBA anywhere.

[Mophus]

Example file, please.

[whitebeard]

This file (.XLS from Libre Office):

dungeon.xls

Draws this dungeon when you plot (Cols 'S' and 'T') in an XY Scatter (with line):

ExcelDungeon.jpg

Making the axes 1:1 and deleting the display of the axes makes it look like a draw window.

I lack the patience to draw the rooms in different colors (thereby key coding the rooms), but that is not difficult and only a one-time setup thing.

Note that the formulas for each draw point would "drag and fill" very easily if the room based constant terms (assigned in the first row of each room) were dragged as well. As an undocumented example, it would be a lot less clear if I did that. So I had to do a lot of manual editing for each room.

The file is a start. I don't think we actually *want* to do this... but if you really do, I can certainly continue. Missing here is all of the logic to automatically connect the nodes (possible doorways) in each room. In my notation Node 1 is North, 2 East, 3 South and 4 West. But the whole thing is totally generic (there can easily be two East doors, etc.). The room type should define the possible nodes.