Building a Modern Roguelike in 2019

At numerous times I've created demos trying to figure out how to merge a traditional roguelike into a FPS without sacrificing it's roots. Here's an article I made in 2017. Unlike many others I don't feel like just random maps makes a roguelike, I've even gone so far as saying no FPS is a roguelike. In this experiment I've tried to merge those ascii characters into the map itself and dropped the textures. The code can be executed and ran or viewed in its entirety on Github here.

The ascii characters stick out of the walls and the floor and are submerged in the water itself.

I randomly rotate the ascii characters, before doing so everything looked super uniform. The trouble is making everything look pretty without being distracting or too realistic. The exciting thing about roguelikes was the imagination taking over and filling in the gaps.

Overall the experiment was fun and a mild success. Next steps will be to work on a combat engine. I'm pretty sure that will be the dealbreaker. Games like hotshot merge turn-based and real-time combat.