✓ Free online edition

Using C++ to Build a Traditional Roguelike

From an empty window to a finished dungeon crawler, with SDL 3. The complete second edition — free to read online.

27 Chapters SDL 3 C++ Roguelike

Start at Chapter 1 → Get the code on GitHub → Get the ebook & paperback →

Reading online is completely free — browse the contents below and start anywhere. Prefer it on your shelf or your Kindle? It's on Amazon too.

27chapters, free online

1winnable roguelike you build

230+diagrams & screenshots

£0no sign-up, no paywall

A few screens from the book — a glimpse of the game you'll build.

ASCII combat — the player @ faces a jackal in a fire-lit room, with a message log reading ‘The fireball bursts! The fireball kills the jackal!’ — Bump-to-attack combat, with a running message log.

The full game screen — a dungeon lit by field of view with dim remembered rooms, an ‘Amulets of SDL’ sidebar and a message log. — Fog of war — lit in view, dim in memory — and the HUD.

A graphical tile-mode cave full of sprite monsters, potions and scrolls. — The same game in optional graphical tile mode.

A victory screen reading ‘YOU HAVE WON — All three Amulets of SDL are yours’. — A real win: recover the three Amulets of SDL.

Build a complete, winnable roguelike in modern C++ — one game, across twenty-seven chapters, every one ending in a program you can compile, run and play. It's a traditional roguelike: turn-based, grid-based, drawn in ASCII, with dungeons that are different every run and death that is permanent. No engine, no framework doing the thinking for you — just C++, SDL 3 for the window and the pixels, and you. You type every line, and you understand every line. The whole second edition is free to read online.

What you'll build

Procedural dungeons Cellular-automata caves Field of view & fog of war Monster pathfinding Monster AI Turn-based combat Ranged magic Items & identification Equipment & stats Status effects Character classes Save & load Synthesized sound A way to win

Contents

Twenty-seven chapters and three appendices, every one free to read online. Start at the beginning, or jump to whatever you want to see first.

Start here

Before the code: what you're building, why a roguelike, and how to get the most from the book.

—PrefaceWhat the finished game is, who the book is for, and how each chapter is laid out.

Part 1 — The Engine

From a blank window to a lit dungeon you can walk, built on an architecture that lasts the whole book.

1A Window of GlyphsOpen an SDL 3 window and draw crisp, coloured ASCII from a glyph atlas built to last. 2Carving the DungeonGenerate rooms with Binary Space Partitioning, link them with corridors, and rebuild any level from a seed. 3The @ MovesPut the player on the map and turn keystrokes into movement that walls can block. 4Seeing and RememberingLight what the player can see with recursive shadowcasting, and dim the rest into remembered map. 5Something StirsPlace the first monsters in the dungeon and give them a presence of their own. 6Turns and BlowsBuild the turn loop and the first melee: bump to attack, deal and take damage, die. 7The Game ClassRefactor the sprawl into a clean Game / Level / Entity design before it collapses under its own weight. 8Tile ModeAdd an optional graphical tile mode that draws the same world with sprites instead of glyphs. 9The MouseBring in the mouse: hover to inspect a tile, click to look around and move.

Part 2 — Systems & Depth

The systems that make it a game: pathfinding AI, items, equipment, effects, deeper floors and saving.

10Dijkstra MapsFlood the dungeon with a Dijkstra map so monsters chase you around corners for next to nothing. 11Monster MindsGive monsters behaviour — hunting, fleeing when wounded, and wandering when they lose you. 12Items and the Identification GambleScatter items across the floor and bring in the genre's classic identify-or-gamble tension. 13Equipment and Derived StatsWield weapons and wear armour, with stats you derive from gear rather than store. 14Status EffectsPoison, confusion and the rest — timed effects that stack, tick down and wear off. 15Deeper FloorsStairs, many floors, and danger that scales the further down you push. 16Content as DataMove monsters and items out of code and into data you can edit without recompiling. 17Save and Load, Done RightWrite a plain-text save that captures the whole game state and restores it exactly.

Part 3 — A Bigger World

More ways to generate, explore and fight across a deeper, stranger dungeon.

18CavesA second dungeon style, grown organically with cellular automata. 19Doors, Secrets and TrapsDoors to open, secrets to uncover, and traps to spring on the unwary. 20VaultsHand-designed set-piece rooms, stamped into the procedural dungeon. 21Ranged CombatLightning and fireballs read from scrolls: targeting, line of fire, and area effects. 22Character ClassesThree playable classes, each one expressed entirely as data. 23Commands That Take Many TurnsAuto-explore, travel and rest: single commands that quietly run many turns.

Part 4 — Polish & Victory

The feel, the sound, a way to win — and a bot that plays the whole thing for you.

24JuiceThe small touches — animation, feedback, a HUD and a message log — that make it feel alive. 25SoundSynthesized sound effects generated in code, with no asset files to ship. 26VictoryA real win condition: recover the three Amulets of SDL from the deep and escape alive. 27A Bot That PlaysWrite a bot that plays your game for you — the ultimate test of the whole engine.

Appendices

Setup, other platforms, and a place to look things up.

ASetting Up SDL3Install Visual Studio and SDL 3, step by step, and build your first window. BFor Mac & Linux UsersBuild every chapter's project on macOS or Linux with CMake. CGlossaryEvery term the book uses, gathered and defined in one place.

All the source is on GitHub. Every chapter's complete, ready-to-build project lives at EliteIntegrity/Using-C-to-Build-a-Traditional-Roguelike-2nd-Edition — one folder per chapter, matching the book line for line. View repo →

Using C++ to Build a Traditional Roguelike

What you'll build

Part of the series

Learning C++ by Building Games →

Fundamentals →

Building C++ Games with AI →