Bioware just released a module for Neverwinter Nights called Infinite Dungeons. Basically, it generates a random dungeon each time you visit. Never the same level, always a different map, different monsters… why, it sounds like…
It sounds like Rogue.
You might be more familiar with Rogue variants/derivatives like Hack, Nethack, Moria, or a host of others. A hallmark of that genre were the “graphics” created entirely from ascii-characters (which didn’t detract from the gameplay whatsoever) — but one of the main features of most of the roguelike games was that each level was different, randomly created and populated, every time you visited. Some variants (I believe Nethack was one) kept the levels which you had already visited persistent, but others (Moria, at least) did not.
My personal introduction to these games was with a port of Moria to DOS. We spent (I won’t say “wasted”) hours exploring the “maze of twisty passages” which was created anew for us each level we visited. Among the most engaging features of the game was that it was actually challenging — and death was final. If you descended to a deeper level (they are harder as you go down) than you could handle you would die, and you would have to start over at level one. No saves, no resurrections, no joke. It was fun.
As plain as it might sound, this might just be the mod that gets me to reinstall Neverwinter on my PC…
