u/Kyzrati

Thanks again to everyone who took part in our tenth annual code-along event, and to those who were helping field questions both here and (mostly) on Discord, which continues to be a pretty active place for roguelike developers year round. Special thanks to /u/KelseyFrog for hosting, /u/HexDecimal for his ongoing work on libtcod, and /u/TStand90 for writing much of the main iteration of the tutorial we've been using.

This year we had one new tutorial declared alongside the event, down from last year's five. Although it wasn't finished, it got pretty far: Rust+Bevy Tutorial by /u/Kurald.

Some stats from the 2026 event:

• 33 unique participants who posted at least once
• 21 with public repos
• 13 languages represented
• 20 different primary libraries used
• 4 projects confirmed completed through at least the tutorial steps

Of the total number of known participants this year, 38% followed along with libtcod and Python, with the rest using something else. While the percentage completion rate was lower this year (so far!), as usual a fair number have just fallen behind and are still making progress...

Compare stats from previous years here:

• 2017
• 2018
• 2019
• 2020
• 2021
• 2022
• 2023
• 2024
• 2025

I've updated the Tutorial Tuesday wiki page with the latest information and links, including some screenshots for those who finished and provided them. I also highlighted repos for completed projects. Let me know if you have a repo link you'd like to add, screenshots for a project that reached completion, or have since completed the tutorial (or complete it later at any time!).

Languages

• C
• C#
• C++
• GDScript
• Go
• Godot 4
• Javascript
• Lua
• Python 3
• Ruby
• Rust
• TypeScript
• Zig

Top 3 languages by percent use: Python (23%), C++ (17%), Rust/Javascript (tied @13%) (a surprising show from C++ this year!)

Libraries

• Bevy
• DragonRuby
• EnTT
• G3N
• GoRogue
• Godot 4
• libtcod
• McRogueFace
• parcel
• pygame-ce
• python-tcod
• ratatui
• ROT.js
• Raylib
• SDL2
• SDL3
• SadConsole
• sola-raylib
• tcod-ecs
• Usagi Engine

Top 3 libraries by percent use: libtcod (18%), SDL (15%), Raylib (12%) (big drop from libtcod itself this year, though still top)

(I've bolded the above list items where at least one project with a repo was completed with that item. You can compare to last year's lists here.)

Sample screenshots by participant:

• Admirable-Evening128 (TypeScript/ROT.js/parcel)
• haveric (Javascript)
• level27geek (Lua/Usagi Engine)
• mariobadr (C/SDL3)
• redblobgames (Javascript)

Beta 17.1 "X0-1V1.1"

Bigger, better, more X0-1V1! That's the general theme here for Beta 17.1, a pit stop of enhancements and expanded content on the way to a much bigger Beta 18. We've seen lots of crazy X0-1V1 runs since since the "god-not-god of chaos" became a reality in the previous release, not too surprising since they're not only the latest hot new thing, but also accessible right from the start and fully compatible with all other factions and routes.

As a surprise release there were quite a few patches in its first weeks (seven in all!), including fixes, QoL, and balance changes. Once that settled down I then had more time to put together some new features to round out the experience, and here they are :D

###More Chaos is Inevitable

Even though Beta 17 already included over a hundred unique effects and even more subvariations, there is such a broad range of possibilities when it comes to X0-1V1 that there's always room for more unexpected/interesting/dangerous/funny/crazy/[adjective] scenarios. More of these would require breaking saves, so I couldn't just patch them in and decided we should have a minor version release so I could add these along with other timely developments (because it would otherwise be a longer wait for Beta 18 and its decidedly different content track).

As usual I won't be spoiling new content here, just note that there are new X0-1V1 acts (both good and bad), new entertaining situations they might take notice of, and also an in-lore way to learn more of the mechanics behind their behavior (encountered in a cave at some point). I also fleshed out one of the special map-specific interactions, even adding two achievements associated with it (there was already a hint in game about what it might be, and the interaction is easier to trigger in Beta 17.1, even accidentally, so that should aid in discovery if you haven't already seen other players doing This Thing).

###More Delay is Inevitable

No, not development delay (as mentioned before already inevitable this year due to some serious IRL issues xD), but weapon delay...

A negative "Delay" stat is always a welcome sight, reducing the time it takes to fire a given weapon. Stack such weapons and the benefits become even more obvious, even without a cycler, capacitor, or some other mechanic for increasing firing rate. The stat was originally designed for slower weapons--bigger or special gear that would be overall too powerful without its own balancing modifier. Some weapons, however, have come with negative/faster Delay, mainly weaker machine gun-like weapons, rapid-fire stuff you'd expect to have that sort of edge. With reasonable smaller modifiers this is fine.

Eventually we got a few cases of weapons incredibly fast in their own right, and fired alone these were also fine, but if stacked could reach insane levels of near-instant firepower. Volley speed was technically capped at no faster than 25, but that's a mere quarter of a turn...

This didn't make much sense but for the longest time I just said fine, if you can support the sky-high resource requirements of these rare builds without imploding, more power to you. It's become a topic of discussion in the community quite a few times over the years, and I figured it was finally time to go in and examine the full extent of any impacts a change to this behavior might have, and what exactly could be done about it.

Test builds recently incorporated a few iterations, and Beta 17.1 presents the final result: volley speed modifiers from ranged weapon Delay specifically are capped at -100. Faster volleys can still happen via additional utilities, but not purely from compounding effects from certain ranged weapons alone. This affects primarily multi-LA loadouts and sizeable Ovr. stacks, so a pretty niche group of builds that weren't used a whole lot anyway, but they'll now just be useful instead of godly. As with most other limitations, this theoretically opens the door to additional new features that were not possible in an unlimited stacking world--we'll see.

Cogmind Beta 17.1 "X0-1V1.1" (260822) changelog (excerpt):

• NEW: 5 new items
• NEW: 1 new robot
• NEW: 5 new X0-1V1 acts
• NEW: 1 new major event [CaptainWinky, Kyzrati]
• NEW: 3 new achievements: "Statue Heist", "Greater Chaos", "Fight Me IRL"
• NEW: More sources of X0-1V1 entertainment
• NEW: Uncommon location containing lore-based explanation for core X0-1V1 mechanics
• NEW: Altar Unit has additional optional interaction (hidden)
• NEW: Temporary slots becoming permanent while hitting max slot count during evolution explicitly reported in message and history logs
• NEW: Option to remind when moving off of resource containers that were not empty when previously dropped (advanced.cfg: remindOnLeavingDroppedContainer)
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message indicating faulty parts cannot be repaired, or fixed via Recalibrator
• NEW: Contextual tutorial message further describing robot analysis effect when acquired
• NEW: New player tutorial message to suggest opening the status info page, and for what purposes
• NEW: Bonus points for spooking CY-PHR
• NEW: Scoresheet records Average Entertainment for X0-1V1
• NEW: Robot data CSV export includes innate heat dissipation values
• MOD: Sfc. Transmogrifier test item removed from Subcaves lab (now available from two other intended sources)
• MOD: D.C.S.S. Altar Unit now indestructible
• MOD: X0-1V1 Relay Coupler enhancement effect limited to once per map, can only affect attached couplers, and includes even multi-class targeting types
• MOD: X0-1V1 temporary weapon slots reversion also recorded in history log
• MOD: Removed X0-1V1 piety drift
• MOD: Ranged weapons cannot contribute more than -100 delay to a single volley
• MOD: X0-1V1 eventually stops interfering with post-MC COM
• MOD: Attacking temporary allies via Splice Drone no longer triggers Zion loyalty check
• MOD: LC kills now attributed to Cogmind for purposes of scoring records
• FIX: Coolant Injectors triggered at instead of above 200 heat [aoemica]
• FIX: Ablative armor highlighted parts list integrity indicator even if cooling effect below damage threshold [aoemica]
• FIX: Since maximizing stored energy for Cogmind during map transition, other bots could increase energy beyond capacity during turn updates [aoemica]
• FIX: Spotter reported armed player even if recently saw unarmed player that did not attach weapons until out of view [aoemica]
• FIX: Typo [aoemica]
• FIX: X0-1V1 power source chain reaction effect generally allowed another act to occur as well [R-26 Lightspeed, aoemica]
• FIX: Manual "Achievements" section still referenced challenge mode-specific achievements [R-26 Lightspeed]
• FIX: Crash on killing more than 99 hostiles without having done any damage via Specialist achievement weapon type sources the entire run so far [Darby]
• FIX: Possible to indirectly earn Specialist achievements through majority kill damage via ramming [Darby]
• FIX: Multiwielding Ripteeth with other melee weapons could show double '%' on follow-up chance when changing active weapon [nathlebg]
• FIX: Beta 16 robot immunities list update included Hacking immunity for several Derelict bots that did not have it [nathlebg]
• FIX: Specialized drone bays with added drone-specific information no longer displayed it since addition of drone repair mechanics [Abstinent Turtle]
• FIX: Allied Researcher would flash '!' along with hostile Researchers if attack warning shown for latter [Ms Vella, CaptainWinky]
• FIX: LC attacks could leave salvage [Infomantis]
• FIX: Potential crash during startup due to automated font change process [Dzuchun]
• FIX: Offscreen markers for robot signals decoded via Imp. Signal Interpreter showed specific variant rather than general class [Mathewnd]

Saves from earlier versions are incompatible with Beta 17.1, but even if you're on Steam and Cogmind automatically updates, Beta 17 is still available via its own legacy branch and you can roll back to finish a run in progress first if you like. Cogmind will remind you which branch to use if it finds an old save, and your old save won't be deleted or affected by the update.

A few points in the changelog that could use further elaboration...

The Sfc. Transmogrifier introduced in Beta 17 and temporarily available for free in the Subcaves lab has been removed from that location, which has now reverted to its fully "normal" state (until I have some other new test item to temporarily drop there in the future :P). Aside from the original (if random) intended way to acquire it, 17.1 adds a new guaranteed way to get it right from the start. This is nice since it enables a whole new play style in its own right. Sure enough we have seen a fair number of true "transmogrification runs" over the past couple months, some abandoning it later in the run, but others taking it over the finish line. (I haven't done it myself yet since I want to stream that, but my streaming has been put on the backburner for a bit since I got pretty sick lately and haven't fully recovered.)

There's also a new major event you might encounter... somewhere in the caves. You don't find it, it finds you. It's something I worked up with CaptainWinky for helping me with the surprise release prep. Enjoy! The chance of seeing it in Beta 17.1 is greatly increased, just so individuals have a greater chance to experience it as opposed to maybe only seeing it in others' runs :P. It's a net positive event, so the increased chance won't be unwelcome, but it will be restored to normal weighting come Beta 18.

There are now multiple new incentives to track down CY-PHR, the only obvious one being the new achievement, but do it and you'll see :)

Also may as well show off some new QoL, like you may be interested in activating the advanced option "remindOnLeavingDroppedContainer" to get an extra reminder before leaving behind a resource container you dropped, in case you were siphoning from the ground during combat:

• image

And this is technically not new since I was able to directly patch it in for Beta 17, but shared here for the first time we've also got a an on-HUD reminder of temporary weapon slots granted by X0-1V1:

• image

It works in condensed mode as well, by printing directly on the sidebar button:

• image

This and of course some other mods or abilities, be they temporary or permanent or usable, will eventually get a more explicit reference list in the form of a new interface window. Patrons never vote for that one enough, but maybe X0-1V1 is going to force my hand sooner rather than later in this regard xD

At the same time, I've also wanted to put off that feature as long as possible to ensure it can accommodate all the content we'll need to display there. Most crucial relevant data is present in the HUD, though not everything is suitable for persistent display. There's a fairly wide variety of especially long-term benefits would be useful to recall in a more centralized manner, so reconciling them into a single interface should be an interesting design challenge.

###Community Art

It's only been a couple months since my last share, but we don't want to fall behind on the art curve! Here's another selection of new pieces...

crazylogi did some great multicolored prints based on Runia's 3D models:

• image

The great thing about streaming at random times is also getting to see viewers that can't be around during my typical times, like Zyalin who then sketches up the scenario in real time :D

• image

That was during my X0-1V1 run, which involved building and rebuilding a gifted Botcube from whatever happened to be around, which at one point involved one equipped with four Nanoswords but not much in the way of propulsion xD (spot the leg...). Zyalin dubbed it "botcute," imagining it scurrying around on its array of swords!

We've actually had more memes than pure art since the last release, especially about X0-1V1... of course :P

This one's by sergeooo, where funny enough the scene depicted was actually a possibility removed pretty quickly in the very first patch shortly after release--great image though :P

• image

Kuriiri here to remind you that X0-1V1 loves subatomizers (the part choices are great xD):

[img width=600]https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/30765339/909edde3691afefde6b20b2fcdb97dd169e688e7.jpg[/img]

Apt reminder by aoemica to not always believe your sensors if you have X0-1V1's attention... (it's fun spotting these in advance, but an occasional sinister one might slip through...)

• image

Szymekc is a fan of Hyp. Multirail, in case it isn't obvious:

• image

But really, aren't we all? Hyp. Multirail hype!

On the very much not-a-meme side of things, Fernman has a new story out!

Enjoy God From the Machine.

Amazing writing as usual, steeped in Cogmind lore (and mechanics) but also coursing with its own evocative ideas and energy. There are some mid-game lore spoilers, or at least you won't be able to understand some of it unless you know lore to at least a mid-game familiarity, where full-game familiarity would make some aspects a little more clear than that. Extremely good, though.

(Also the attentive among you may spot a character in game from their previous work I shared, in precisely the place you'd expect to see them.)

###Numbers Go Up

Following the leaderboard reset, a portion of the post-Beta 17 release period was as usual spent analyzing Beta 16/16.1 player stats, sharing the lengthy results of that here.

• image

Naturally it covers a lot of Unchained-related material, but many other features and topics as well.

In the meantime, Beta 18 development is already underway, having started with patron-inspired content that will complement the Hexidium expansion nicely.

• image

So we recently had Sunlorn up for r/RoguelikeDev Feedback Friday, and I streamed it a couple times since in order to provide feedback (starting here, more to come), but I've also been playing off stream as well, because this game's pretty neat!

Having not been widely noticed or played yet, it's no surprise there are a fair few QoL issues, but Tesselation's been pretty receptive to that feedback and already released a couple new updates incorporating suggested improvements.

Despite its WIP status, there's enough to do to keep it interesting for a while, and the world does a decent job of making you want to explore it since it's got enough going on with its systems and interactions, and looks pretty. There are minor survival aspects, like you do need to worry about food, light sources, and basic resources running out (and don't forget to find a cloak to cover yourself in poor weather if wearing metal armor!), but your friendly starting village is often enough to get you up and running.

The itemization and spells/skills aren't going to blow your mind, but there is some good variety with quite a few items, all useful in some way. The complete lack of XP for character development is nice, although you are probably forced to kill a lot anyway. Improvement instead comes from flowers that allow you to pick from a subset of stat increases, and you get can get more spells from your god. There are faction relations and individual relations with NPCs, and charisma in general actually has some meaning, which is nice in a role-playing sense.

Overall I find Sunlorn definitely has some interesting story potential, for example in my run from yesterday:

I started out in a large-ish village with a sewer. Sewers kinda suck because there's almost nowhere for flowers to grow, so my stats remained mostly unchanged, but there is plenty of treasure down there to sell in the village for coin. Too much treasure, in fact--both treasure dealers in town ran out of money to buy my stuff, so the rest of my treasure I loaded onto a pair of donkeys I bought from the local herder to take with me later.

Despite all the rumors locals gave me regarding artifacts down in the sewers, I couldn't find any way to get below depth 2, no matter how much searching I did... Sucks because the boots of speed sounded great. I had even found several unused keys, but nothing to unlock. Funny enough I did find one locked door, but had no key for that one, haha...

• [Sewer depth 1 cleared](https://www.gridsagegames.com/images/sunlorn/sunlorn adventurer 1.png)

I spent a while clearing the second depth, because the sewers are no joke until you've got some more serious armor, and even then you can get overwhelmed if not careful. Sunlorn dungeon difficulty scales very quickly!

All this time I needed a source of food, which there's only so much of in town, be it for sale, or NPCs giving it to you because they see you hungry, or hunting wildlife in the nearby woods. Shops don't restock.

But hey, I'm kind rich from all this sewer diving, right? So I notice the herder has a few extra donkeys... Yum yum, those guys are stacked. When I needed to eat I'd buy a donkey, chop down a tree for firewood (axe is good but you don't need it all the time--get your non-food donkey to carry it hehe), then enter an unused home, shut the door, chop up the donkey and cook it over a nice fire. Any extra meat I'd salt up for my future journey into the wilderness.

I eventually gave up trying to find a way deeper into the sewer an decided I was done with my home village, so I used my fortune to load up on supplies from the local shops (your typical walk around and browse, picking up items then paying the shopkeep type of shops). I also bought a horse, which I could supposedly ride but that feature didn't seem to work properly. That's okay, horses can carry stuff. Also they have another use we'll see later ;)

Before I left I also found a map in a shop, so I bought that and it helpfully shows the locations of villages, forts, and various other features across the land.

• [Our caravan before heading out from the village](https://www.gridsagegames.com/images/sunlorn/sunlorn adventurer 2.png)

Based on the map I wanted to head to a village to the north on my way towards the story goal (you do have a mission!), though that village looked like a different color and I expected that direction to be unfriendly. It was, indeed.

My first encounter outside my home village was a lone man in the forest. He clearly didn't like me much and threw a rock at me, which my horse and donkeys didn't like so they chased after him. I called them back, but then got curious where he was headed off to even though he was to the west, not my desired direction. Well he wasn't too far off--apparently he had a house in the forest, just him, and I didn't have to consider what to do since my horse immediately charged in and trampled him to death in his own house hahaha

As we were leaving a woman came by, presumably his wife, but fled after seeing us. (Maybe the blood on my horse's hooves gave it away.)

To go back a bit, before leaving my village I was planning to hire some mercenaries to accompany me on my journey, a true caravan, but I'd spent so long in the village looting the sewer, and all those guys are wandering around outside in metal gear with no cloak, so they lost all their gear to attrition by the time I left. (I believe the dev will do something about this eventually :P). Anyway, I'm not going to spend my money to hire a bunch of naked guys to escort me through the wilderness. (Technically if I really wanted to I could buy leather gear and wooden/stone weapons to give them, but I didn't want to be bothered. Cloaks are not incredibly common, by the way.)

Anyway, it turns out that horses and donkeys are fairly decent mercenaries in their own right, with lots of HP and trampling capabilities, and they can't miss and aggro their friends! I've tried hiring multiple mercenaries before, and every time it turned into a free-for-all when one of them throws a rock or spear and inevitably hits his friend on accident...

I eventually did find the village I was headed towards on the map. Good map. Then things got even more interesting...

I had circled around and came at it from the northeast (completely by accident--I had passed it up a bit and came across a road with a sign telling me it was a little south of my position). This is a rival culture that does not like me one bit, and I'd already found one local who I scared off as I approached.

Leaving my donkeys and horse in a group further out of town, I spotted a shop on the east side so I thought I'd investigate that first. No one saw me slip inside except the shopkeep, who was not pleased, so I hit him a couple times until he ran off. He wasn't exactly fighting material, and I've got decent protection. So I happily looted away, just a general store so nothing of great value, but across the street... a fully-stocked potion shop?! Lemme in.

I waltzed into the potion shop and of course the guy didn't want to sell me anything, but that's okay I wasn't really interested in buying them anyway (potions are expensive, even if you're rich!), so I closed the door and chop chop goodbye potion salesman.

Now this was jackpot. There are a ton of potions in this game, and I don't have many of them identified, so this is a good opportunity to start, yeah? Well, it's dangerous but also fun. So I picked most of them up (there's over 20 different kinds in this one shop) and started chugging.

I knew I couldn't stay for too long because the shop has a window, and if I'm spotted by someone wandering by, they're gonna tell their friends and come after me. One of the potions was apnea, so great I don't need to breath, and as luck would have it, the one immediately after that was poison gas xD. So the shop quickly fills with gas, and I thought here's my chance...

I open the door and yeah there are several villagers outside but the gas continues to spread. Not massively so, but a good few spaces outside the door in every direction, and I noticed that everyone outside is mad but hanging just outside the edge of the gas. So of course I pulled out my bow and start filling them all with arrows. There's not a lot they can do, but also I'm not quite killing them because I'm not some amazing marksman and they're all a little close. I just tried to hurt enough of them to get them to run away, but then the poisonous cloud eventually began to subside, so I backed into the doorway to bottleneck them and try to scare them off with skillful use of my mace, and the frenzy magic of my god Nikitis.

Side note: Enemies generally seem fairly smart in terms of whether or not they're willing to fight or flee, taking into account you, your friends, your condition, their condition, their own friends, etc... If you are much more powerful than a creature or enemy, they'll just run away even if they are angry with you.

These weren't just regular villagers though, they had some Warriors with them with actual gear, and I wasn't in great shape after a little while. I was definitely afraid I'd get overwhelmed.

• [Me inside the potion shop, door closed.](https://www.gridsagegames.com/images/sunlorn/sunlorn adventurer 3.png) You can see the dead shopkeep %, a couple bad potions I didn't want, and outside to the east a whole lot of +, the arrows I was shooting at folks before retreating to plan my defense.

Well I had this Lyre of Peace I picked up in the sewers earlier, and I'd never used it before, but supposedly it can make enemies forget they hate you. I thought I'd try that out. I strummed away. It started working! I could see my attackers getting wary instead of hateful, but... the problem is there were a few too many of them, and I'm pretty sure they were reminding each other how much they hate me. So Lyre bad for crowds, maybe better for individuals, who woulda thought. I don't exactly have the greatest charisma, either. (It does matter in Sunlorn... these people could very well have been my friends! But no, we must face off as enemies!)

Fortunately, my raid on the potion shop netted me two more potions of haste on top of the one I already had, so I ended up using both to make a hasty retreat, a throng of locals at my back as I fled into the forest.

I met up with my pack animals down the road, and that is where my intrepid Adventurer stopped for camp last night...

Thank you /u/Tesselation9000 for signing up with Sunlorn

Download for Windows here: https://tesselation9000.itch.io/wander

Tesselation9000 says:

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Sunlorn is a game about traveling the world and exploring deep dungeons, with strong influences from Nethack, Larn, Brogue and DCSS. The game is heavily focused on having a rich, interactive environment and leans hard on using procedural generation. Not only are levels randomly generated, but the world map, the number and types of locations you visit, and the game objectives themselves vary with every run. My vision is to build a game that gives you a different adventure each time you play. There is a dynamic lighting system, fire that spreads, rivers that flow, clouds of mist or poisonous gas that slowly diffuse, and a sky that cycles between night and day.

Sunlorn has a lightweight character build system. There are no experience levels, classes or skill trees. The primary way of advancing your character is just by increasing their six attributes (the usual D&D six-pack: strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom and charisma) by collecting magical statonia flowers scattered across the world.

Presently, you can build a character from one of four human nations. This choice does not affect your statistics, but influences things like your starting area, how other species perceive you and what gods are available to you. There are eight religions you can find in game that will grant special powers to their followers. There is also a large number of potions, scrolls, wands and other items.

I recommend starting with the tutorial before jumping into the full game. If anyone is able to make it past the first three levels of the starter dungeon, I'd really like to hear about it. After that point, the game hasn't been playtested enough to balance out. Actually, what would be REALLY cool is if anyone would like to volunteer to let me watch them play a run.

It's only available for Windows at this time, I'm afraid.

Leave your feedback here, or you can email me at sunlorn@gmx.ca

Thanks!

---

Other members interested in signing up for FF in future weeks can check the sidebar link for instructions.

Quite a lot of roguelike players go on to make their own roguelike, even if only a 7DRL or little hobby project to chip away at. Still, many more want to but haven't yet started their own roguelike, because even just taking those first steps can seem like a daunting hurdle.

Wait no longer!

While we've always had a welcoming, helpful community over at r/RoguelikeDev, it's often still up to individuals to drag themselves over there and get started, often with help from the resources in our sidebar. For the past nine years /u/KelseyFrog has been helping organize a multi-week code-along event to jump start yet more roguelike projects. The results have been great every year, so we're back to do it again :D

"RoguelikeDev Does The Complete Roguelike Tutorial" is a weekly event starting August 4th and continuing for the following two months. It's basically a bunch of interested people starting from scratch to build their own roguelike by following one of the more popular tutorials. By the end you'll have your own basic roguelike, including any extra features you might have added along the way. Some also go on to continue expanding their project after the event, or at least finish it then if they couldn't keep up during the time period.

It's fairly slow paced, and there are plenty of people around to help, so consider joining in! Check out the preview/announcement thread for more info.

(If you have some experience or want to use another language/engine/tutorial that's fine, too!)