[Coco] Truchet Tile Maze Generator

[Andrew]

> Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2017 03:29:03 -0400
> From: "Kip Koon" <computerdoc at sc.rr.com>
> To: "'CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts'" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Truchet Tile Maze Generator
>
> Hi Andrew!
> That is an amazing little program.  How long did it take for you to modify that for the low resolution graphics screen.  I'd like to see what you come up with for the high resolution graphics screen on the CoCo3FPGA!  Now that would look really cool indeed!

Honestly, it didn't take long at all. Maybe 30 minutes total for 
everything including the markup file. I developed it using Brad Grier's 
javascript Mocha emulator (http://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/). The 
original C64 one-liner is actually not that old, and is the subject of 
what appears to be an interesting book:

https://10print.org/

As far as the CoCo3FPGA is concerned - well, ahem - I still have to get 
it set up! I have everything, but it is one of many of my back burner 
projects, currently being neglected in favor of a "nanodegree" course I 
am taking from Udacity.

On a side note, these "Truchet Tile" type mazes (no matter what tiles 
they are made from) aren't true mazes, they just look like them. For one 
thing, there are no "T" intersections in this diagonal version, and you 
can find paths that are also "unconnected" to anything else such that 
they can't be exited or entered. I'm sure there are other properties 
about them that if I were more mathematically inclined would also 
indicate "non-mazeness", but I think you get the idea.

If you used tiles with more rotations (than just 2), plus added 
"intersection" and "t-style" tiles, it could run and produce something 
more "maze-like", but it would still suffer from non-navigable areas. 
Even with that limitation, it might still form the basis of an 
interesting "rogue-like" style dungeon generator or game. I have read 
that there supposedly is an Android-based game out there that uses 
Truchet tiles in some manner; it might be interesting to look into, too.

Lastly - today I also found this, related to this one-line gem:

https://trixter.oldskool.org/2012/12/17/maze-generation-in-thirteen-bytes/

If I had the time, I'd dig out an old PMODE 4 screen-scrolling routine I 
have and update it to allow "infinite scroll" of my graphical version. 
Ah, well.

-- 
Andrew L. Ayers
Glendale, Arizona
https://github.com/andrew-ayers
http://www.phoenixgarage.org/