Pro-D, a procedural terrain generator we've made was selected for sale event :)

[erhanofgraylake]

Hello Folks,
My name is Erhan, and I am one of the developers for Pro-D, a tool we've made for Unity3D. It is a classical roguelike oriented map generator development tool with several original map generation algorithms, and a 3d dungeon assets pack for Unity3D.

link to our reddit post (apparently we're giving away free vouchers also, so check it out )
http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/2w88fw/our_roguelike_devtool_prod_for_unity_was_selected/

We wanted to get the word out, since it was selected for a 50% off Unity Asset Madness week, and (for the time being at least) we're getting some attention.
If you have any questions please ask away and we will answer.

link to the store
http://u3d.as/content/gray-lake-studios/pro-d-total-procedural-dungeon-generator-total/4Dk

link to the roguebasin page
http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Pro-D

[Krice]

This is a forum. This is not a place for advertising commercial products.

[reaver]

75$ (regular price) for a dungeon generator?  (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/8553)
In-app purchases for a dungeon generator? (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.GrayLake.ProDnD_1&hl=en)
Speechless.

[rust]

So you basically took the algorithms from RogueBasin and started charging 75 bucks for them?

Edit:
I played around with the demo of this thing, and at least 3 algorithms are prone to having disconnected areas. Way to go.

[chooseusername]

So you basically took the algorithms from RogueBasin and started charging 75 bucks for them?

Edit:
I played around with the demo of this thing, and at least 3 algorithms are prone to having disconnected areas. Way to go.

No-one is forced to buy it, and if it saves someone time, they might consider it good value.  Of course, that's a lot of money for what seems like little, and I'd be disappointed if I paid it and it turned out to give broken results.

People used to give away this sort of thing on a web page as a useless tool.

[erhanofgraylake]

whoa, a lot of negativity

I seem to have offended a few people with my post, so I will clarify a the points they have raised.

- We love the roguelike community and wanted to spread the news that there was a discount on a tool we made, and lots of people have enjoyed. Since this is an important forum I thought it was a nice place to do so. If the mods disagree please send me a message or delete it. I will hold no grudges

- No, we did not just take algorithms from Rogue basin and selling them for 75$. We put considerable amount of work into this, over several months, and slowly created a tool that is compatible with Unity3D framework, gui, documentations, 3d tilesets, tutorials, documentation, and a subreddit on its own. We have received nothing but praise so far from many professional developers and roguelike enthusiasts. We are not selling re-packaged freely available stuff, we are selling a time saving and comprehensive tool for Unity3D.


- Some of algorithms may have problems. We fix things as we go along, thanks for mentioning the issue. We would appreciate if you gave us some more detailed feedback.

- We love competition, for those who think it is easy I implore you to do the same thing, create your own packages and give them for free or sell them on Unity Asset Store. That way more tools get created for roguelikes, which is awesome. Unity3D has a free version. I am sure there are more talented people than we are out there, and we would love to see their products.

- So far we have received literally nothing but positive feedback, I must say I am very surprised about these comments. Still, thanks for the opportunity to answer these points. I hope I've clarified doubts you may have. Ask away if you have further qualms and questions.

So overall, sorry if I have offended people. I do believe we created a nice and useful tool, a lot of people enjoy it, and we are getting nice feedback. We have received nothing but love from the roguelike community with the exception of 3 replies here . We intend to keep working hard to contribute further.

[Omnivore]

- No, we did not just take algorithms from Rogue basin and selling them for 75$. We put considerable amount of work into this, over several months, and slowly created a tool that is compatible with Unity3D framework, gui, documentations, 3d tilesets, tutorials, documentation, and a subreddit on its own.

LOL!

Must say though, this is one of the best arguments I've ever read *against* open source.

[getter77]

Topic is fine near as I can tell, I thought this sounded familiar somehow then noted it was used in Rogue Station as per the Basin entry.

What plotting is your team doing for the big move to Unity5 and/or the meteoric rise of UE4?

[jlund3]

- No, we did not just take algorithms from Rogue basin and selling them for 75$. We put considerable amount of work into this, over several months, and slowly created a tool that is compatible with Unity3D framework, gui, documentations, 3d tilesets, tutorials, documentation, and a subreddit on its own. We have received nothing but praise so far from many professional developers and roguelike enthusiasts. We are not selling re-packaged freely available stuff, we are selling a time saving and comprehensive tool for Unity3D.

Not trying to be negative, as I don't use Unity nor do I care if someone overprices a product ( people can decide for themselves if a product is worth the high price). That said, could you clarify exactly why your generation algorithms are worth the price you are asking? From the screenshots I saw, it doesn't look like the generation algorithms are much more than what could be found on basin and other similar resources. Or is the main contribution that you packaged those existing algorithms up for easy use inside Unity?

In any case, I find that the hard part of (good) procedural generation is not coming up with the algorithms to generate basic dungeons and such. The hard part is in fact tying multiple game systems together into the generation process so that you actually get meaningful procedural generation. This I think, depends very much on the individual game, and cannot easily be packaged into a prefabricated asset.

[erhanofgraylake]

Topic is fine near as I can tell, I thought this sounded familiar somehow then noted it was used in Rogue Station as per the Basin entry.

What plotting is your team doing for the big move to Unity5 and/or the meteoric rise of UE4?

Thanks for the green light mod. .

We should be fine with Unity5, if there are problems we will be working to make it compatible since it generated a lot of attention and positive feedback. We also get a stupid grin on our faces when we get nice comments about how people use it in their games, so there is that.

As for the meteoric rise of UE4.... well, I am more of a programmer than a "game maker" in most senses. So, UE4 is much more alluring than Unity for me, but the problem is that Unity is far more "accessible" for small scale development/publishing.

Long story short: we want to do it, creating a package for UE4 would be freaking awesome, however we are short on production power. It takes ridiculous money and effort to put anything semi decent out there. Depending on how much we generate extra income with this sale, we can actually think about these things, but that remains to be seen

[erhanofgraylake]

Not trying to be negative, as I don't use Unity nor do I care if someone overprices a product ( people can decide for themselves if a product is worth the high price). That said, could you clarify exactly why your generation algorithms are worth the price you are asking? From the screenshots I saw, it doesn't look like the generation algorithms are much more than what could be found on basin and other similar resources. Or is the main contribution that you packaged those existing algorithms up for easy use inside Unity?

Thanks for keeping an open mind
http://produnity.blogspot.nl/ gives a good description of what we're selling. It is all that, under a Unity hood. It can take a lot of time to set it up. With Pro-D you get it, and you're ready to generate. Making all those things work from scratch on Unity, may take a considerable amount of time (depending your skill with roguelikes and unity). We're told that it saves people time.

In any case, I find that the hard part of (good) procedural generation is not coming up with the algorithms to generate basic dungeons and such. The hard part is in fact tying multiple game systems together into the generation process so that you actually get meaningful procedural generation. This I think, depends very much on the individual game, and cannot easily be packaged into a prefabricated asset.

I'd say I agree with you. Even if we were to load it up with our awesome generator algorithms it is very unlikely that they'd fit various needs. We've seen several examples of people not using any of our generators, yet we suspect that they have taken those for a basis and a guide to make their own.

Thanks a lot for your question and feedback

[jlund3]

Not trying to be negative, as I don't use Unity nor do I care if someone overprices a product ( people can decide for themselves if a product is worth the high price). That said, could you clarify exactly why your generation algorithms are worth the price you are asking? From the screenshots I saw, it doesn't look like the generation algorithms are much more than what could be found on basin and other similar resources. Or is the main contribution that you packaged those existing algorithms up for easy use inside Unity?

Thanks for keeping an open mind
http://produnity.blogspot.nl/ gives a good description of what we're selling. It is all that, under a Unity hood. It can take a lot of time to set it up. With Pro-D you get it, and you're ready to generate. Making all those things work from scratch on Unity, may take a considerable amount of time (depending your skill with roguelikes and unity). We're told that it saves people time.

Yup, those were the screenshots I was referring to. You didn't really answer my question about what if any innovations you made in terms of generation algorithms.

[Slash]

I think  this could be pretty useful for roguedevs using unity. 35 usd is pretty cheap if it can save you even 2 hours of work.

I believe devs are entitled to charge as much as they want for their hard work.

[getter77]

As for the meteoric rise of UE4.... well, I am more of a programmer than a "game maker" in most senses. So, UE4 is much more alluring than Unity for me, but the problem is that Unity is far more "accessible" for small scale development/publishing.

Long story short: we want to do it, creating a package for UE4 would be freaking awesome, however we are short on production power. It takes ridiculous money and effort to put anything semi decent out there. Depending on how much we generate extra income with this sale, we can actually think about these things, but that remains to be seen

Hmm, I imagine you folks alongside the rest of creation saw Epic's big grant play earlier today then?  I should think your toolset might well be a good contender for a jolt of monetary vigor to get it the rest of the way and get in on the ground floor as it were:

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/epic-launches-unreal-dev-grants

[TheCreator]

Must say though, this is one of the best arguments I've ever read *against* open source.

Because if you publish the code, somebody might actually use it? I thought that was the *purpose* of open source.