Zomia

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Revision as of 16:32, 12 September 2016 by Pratyeka (talk | contribs)
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Zomia
Developer globalcitizen
Theme Ancient history / fantasy
Influences Angband, Brogue, Dwarf Fortress
Status beta
Released git HEAD
Updated constantly
Licensing GPL3
P. Language Lua
Platforms Love2D (Windows, OSX, Linux, Android, iOS...)
Interface Tiles, Keyboard, Sound and Music
Game Length Unknown
Official site of Zomia


Zomia is a roguelike loosely based on the ancient history of the Zomia region, centered on Yunnan, in what is now far southwest China. The area borders Tibet, northeast India, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam and is a naturally spectacular setting. This is the author's first roguelike.

The overall concept is fairly large, spanning wilderness, factions and procedurally generated plot and therefore means Zomia is a potentially long term (read: unfinished/unfinishable) project, however I have enough experience with programming projects (failed and otherwise) that the current goal, far more manageable, is to release *something* for 2016 ARRP. Because time is short the decision has been made to simply focus on dungeon mechanics and ignore the town and wilderness, despite those both being quite well started and critical to the larger concept. Therefore the 2016 ARRP version will be more of a coffee break style playable dungeon with critters in more of the standard fantasy genre than later game versions. Later game versions should be relatively less fantasy-inspired, more historically accurate with much more backstory/town mechanics/above-ground exploration/plot development.

The inspiration comes from my research in to Yunnan history which has been slowly progressing for about 15 years including a currently underway online Wikisource translation of a 1000 year old text from the Nanzhao period and a narrative, synthesis-style ancient history book that I am writing on the subject. This information will be used to inform the game world.

A development log is available, and you can also check out the brand new beta gameplay preview video! (No audio unfortunately... as the in-game audio really is pretty damn good!)

Interesting features:

  • Arcade visual effects
  • Sound and Music
  • Tracks / footprints
  • Procedurally generated tile graphics