Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written in 4kLoC

Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @01:44PM (#48125053)

Author here! Thanks for posting! This game is written in a Clojure-like programming language I've made. So this is a (B)rogue-like in a Clojure-like :)

What I think is interesting is that this game computes the entire world state each tick and does so efficiently thanks to persistent data structures.

To anyone who dared to fire it up: thank you for playing, I'm curious what you think!

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by jackpirate on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @02:10PM (#48125388)

The name let-go of your programming language is awesome!

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @02:13PM (#48125429)

Thanks! Please check it out and leave me a star if you like it :)

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by biosubterranean on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @03:14PM (#48126159)

Little buggy (dying from things not on the screen), but I love the dwarf fortress esque vibes

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by Oakwhisper on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @03:32PM (#48126364)

There was a commit a few minutes ago that fixed the instakills for me

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @03:36PM (#48126404)

This was caused by a stdlib bug in the language, I bypassed it :D

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by onlyrealcuzzo on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @04:47PM (#48127344)

This is awesome!

I'm interested in building something similar, any tips besides looking at what you've done and Brogue?

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @06:07PM (#48128243)

I'd say don't immediately go into making an ECS and don't sweat about perf too much. You can totally do this in any programming language. This is a good talk about roguelike software design in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxI3Eu5DPwE

Tbh the whole channel is a gold mine of inspiration. Also check: https://discord.gg/bgd2GrhR

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by allknowingfrog on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @06:10PM (#48128270)

I did a quick run on the web version. I was able to sneak attack everything on the first two levels, which felt like a bug, but I'm honestly not sure.

When I found a spear, I kind of expected to be able to throw it, but I didn't find a throw option anywhere. I think that makes the short sword better in every case, but maybe I missed something.

Overall, I love the execution. Quality retro fun with a really nice interface.

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @06:25PM (#48128407)

This totally is a bug. Was this recently? I thought I fixed this in WASM version.

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by allknowingfrog on Thursday May 14, 2026 @10:26AM (#48135912)

Yeah, this was yesterday in the web version. I only did the one run, and only for a couple of levels, so I don't think I can give you any help reproducing it.

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by cmrdporcupine on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @07:24PM (#48129001)

My 15 year old's (who is a roguelike fanatic) first comment was: there's no diagonal movement?

"The visuals are interesting.... oh I died."

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by marcingas on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @07:57PM (#48129315)

I don't have a numpad so it did not occur to me to add diagonals :D

Good feedback though, I'll add it. Thanks to your 15 year old!

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by jdiff on Wednesday May 13, 2026 @08:48PM (#48129745)

most roguelikes also add (IIRC looking at my phone keyboard and reverse engineering muscle memory) yubn for diagonals.

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by fhn on Friday May 15, 2026 @01:55AM (#48145036)

definitely need this. Enemies can attack you diagonally but you can't attack back

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by dgb23 on Thursday May 14, 2026 @07:25AM (#48133901)

I don't think you have specified that "," is used to pick up stuff in the bar below the log.

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Re:Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written ... by fhn on Friday May 15, 2026 @01:53AM (#48145033)

it's not. pickup is auto

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