Ideas for a Sudoku puzzle system that could coexist with or replace Sokoban:

• The puzzle part of the level would be represented by an 11x11 grid (9 3x3 areas with 2 rows/columns of some other terrain to separate them).
• The solution must be given by engraving numbers on squares, with certain numbers burnt into the floor. This would require a level flag that provides 2 special cases to engravings: 1) that non-Elbereth engravings do not degrade normally, so you can write numbers in the dust without smudging them; and 2) it is impossible to erase a burnt engraving.
• The solution must be given by dropping rocks of the appropriate quantity onto the squares of the grid to represent each number.
• Both of the above solutions have the issue that the grid is practically unreadable and it basically forces the player to copy the puzzle out of the game, solve it, then copy the solution back in. One solution is to have spaces containing nothing except the requisite solution display as one of a set of 9 new glyphs that display as the number 1-9.
• Another solution is to avoid numbers and use object classes (weapon, armor, scroll, ring, wand, potion, gem, spellbook, and amulet), since there is no particular reason Sudoku has to use the numbers 1-9.
  • This means the puzzle would be solved by having 1 of each object class in each row, column, and sub-grid.
  • The “fixed” objects provided as a starting point could either be immovable, or movable but required to put back in place for the puzzle to be solved (i.e. the puzzle is checking not for any valid Sudoku solution, but a valid Sudoku solution in which the starting objects haven’t moved).
  • The main issue with this suggestion is avoiding providing the player with a bunch of free resources and not requiring them to amass 7-9 of each object class before starting. One way to work around it is to add a new object to each object class that does nothing and never generates outside of the Sudoku level, where exactly 9 of each will appear in every puzzle between the initial ones and the “stock piles”.

Allow for gas clouds of different types (confusion gas, sleep gas, hallucination gas, etc) by passing an additional argument to create_gas_cloud.

Clouds of sleep gas would immediately have a use in Nazgul and orange dragon breath attacks, which are already described as such. They might also be useful for sleeping gas traps, which would emit an actual cloud of sleep gas. Depending on implementation, the sleep gas cloud could have only a chance of inducing sleep rather than always knocking you out, which could make it tactically interesting to navigate/teleport/etc rather than just getting put to sleep and having the cloud gone by the time you wake up.

In an effort to reduce the number of low-importance y/n confirmation prompts in the game, make applying a lock pick or key scan the hero’s inventory, the floor underneath them, and 8 surrounding spaces for doors or containers that the tool can be used on. If there is only one such thing, automatically use the tool on that thing without prompting. If there are multiple, either prompt for each one in sequence or offer a menu of things to use the tool on.

This has a problem in that heroes may end up accidentally locking doors they want to go through. The problem may not be that important, since they can just unlock it again. Another suggestion is to make the map symbol for a locked door different from an unlocked one.

Add a way to show nearby unseen pets and possibly also peacefuls. Using a warning-like system, they render as green 1-5 (pets) and blue 1-5 (peacefuls) using the same scale as warning does.

Initial idea was to tie this to intrinsic warning or when wearing a blessed ring of warning, but this has flavor problems since warning exists to alert you to threats, which pets and peacefuls aren’t. Plus, a lot of roles get intrinsic warning anyway, and rings don’t generally change behavior based on beatitude. It might be better off coming from some other source.

Ideas to change terrain symbols to reduce overcrowding of the # symbol:

• Iron bars and fences render as cyan or brown wall glyphs.
• Sinks render as white or blue \.
• Closed drawbridges render as some color of + which is not used by many spellbooks - perhaps red or orange.
• Corridors could be moved to a period glyph but this would probably be very unpopular and make levels look a lot worse.
• Trees could be green +, or possibly green \ to avoid spellbook confusion.
• Clouds could set the background color of a space and not change the foreground color, and could possibly be rendered with a blank space character, but this would probably have issues on non-color terminals.

Engravings are visible from a distance, having their own glyph which renders only when there is an engraving on top of “uninteresting” terrain (floor or corridor). In ASCII, they render as a “, or possibly a ~, but their color varies based on what type of engraving it is.

• Dust engravings: brown
• Actual engraving (e.g. athame): gray
• Burnt engraving: black
• Scrawl of blood: red
• Graffiti: bright green, bright blue, or bright purple