

Generating Worlds in a Minecraft-like Game - JeanPierre
http://archive.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=259175

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spiralganglion
Since we're on the topic, I'd like to point out this project:
<http://www.quelsolaar.com/>

The team behind that website are making an MMO game featuring procedurally
generated environments and rendering techniques. They're developing all their
tech in-house, with a rather small team, and releasing some of their tools for
others to use. They've got a fascinating 3d modelling program, for instance,
that you can download and fool around with.

I'm co-founder of a startup game studio focussing on games with extensive
procedural generation (note: not at all related to the above — mad respect for
those guys, though). If you've got questions, I'm an open book. It's an
exciting new trend in this industry, and we're going to be all over it.

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Alex3917
See also: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyyUiYQolA>

There are also literally hundreds of articles about the algorithms used to
randomly generate the worlds in roguelike games, many of which are quite
interesting.

~~~
Joakal
Wait until this game comes out:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0-lsyo28SU&HD=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0-lsyo28SU&HD=1)

Eve Online + procedurally generated + 'minecraft-solo' ambition.

More link and description here:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/bykpz/this_space_mmo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/bykpz/this_space_mmo_is_turning_out_to_be_bitchin/)

~~~
spiralganglion
My co-founder and I were just looking at that game. Our startup is a game
studio, and our focus is on procedurally generated content: environments,
characters, narratives, graphics, even gameplay mechanics. It's a very
exciting time for this sort of work, especially since the incumbents like EA
and Activision can't pursue procedural generation as whole-heartidly as us
independents.

~~~
Natsu
While these games can be fun, you have to avoid the "empty universe" problem.
Minecraft-like play, where you have a sandbox in which you create all sorts of
crazy things is good, but for any game where you're trying to put a story in
there, the sheer emptiness and banality of games where the content is spread
too thinly will ruin the good parts of a game.

Players are really good at spotting patterns, so you have to be careful of the
drudgery of having them quest to kill X tribbles for $reason all the time.

Anyhow, good luck with your game. I'm sure there are a lot of ways to make
good procedurally generated content that haven't been fully explored yet and I
hope you find some of them :)

~~~
spiralganglion
We've got a few games in the pipe, and none of them are open-world. It's a
common assumption that games with some procedural aspect come out as sprawling
"canvases" for free-form play — that you'll be stuck in the sandbox if you
want to play with procedural environments. Where in fact, our game currently
in active development has a tiny environment. You can see the whole thing on
one screen, with your character occupying about 1% of the area. The
environment is continuously procedurally generated _as the game is running_ ,
constantly shifting and changing without really expanding, per se. The
player's reaction to their ever-changing surroundings is a big part of the
fun. The gameplay is rooted in kinetic action, where spacial relationships are
manipulated by the player. It's an arcade-style game, with the player's
character pitted against a screenful of enemies. Attacks don't cause damage as
much as create movement, and it's the movement of the character and enemies
with respect to the (somewhat predictably) shifting environment that creates
the flow of gameplay. I'd be more specific, but we're not quite ready to
reveal the whole concept. It's quite a bit different than anything we've seen
before, so we're being careful about having the product ready to launch before
we start showing off the more unusual and exciting qualities.

In addition to procedurally generated, constantly evolving environments..
we've got procedurally re-composed music (my background is in algorithmic
music composition). Re-composed, meaning the music is based on human-written
themes, but the arrangements are done in realtime by the computer. We're also
playing with procedural generation of enemies, to create a lot of variety with
relatively little effort. That is, they'll look _and_ behave differently
depending on the outcome of the procedural generation.

~~~
Natsu
Just out of curiosity, where can I find out about your game? I clicked around
your profile & portfolio links, but I can't even find out the name of it,
unless it's there and I'm just not recognizing it. You have me curious.

~~~
spiralganglion
It's our first title as a new startup, so we don't even have a company website
yet. We're going to finish it up early in march, publish it through a few
platforms, and then launch the website and do our promotional stuff to
coincide with public availability. Soon, soon.

If there's anything specific you'd like to know I'd be happy to email you
about it, or notify you when we release it. If you want to email me, you can
use this address: spiral@ganglion.ca

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saadshamim
This may sound dorky but the random generated map was exciting me the most
while playing minecraft :P Couldn't figure out how to do it.

~~~
spiralganglion
Have you heard of Dwarf Fortress?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Fortress#Gameplay>

Some of the most exciting procedural generation I've yet encountered. Not the
most visually impressive game, but the code behind it is mind-blowing.

~~~
intended
Thanks for mentioning it!

Dwarf Fortress is brilliant. As much as people like Minecraft, DF really
crushed the procedurally generated world bit - and then went on to crush a lot
of other concepts.

How do I even begin introducing this game?

I guess, first the team: The game is the labor of love of 2 brothers; they are
genuinely interested in crafting the best world creator there has ever been.
Till date, I have not heard mentioned any plans to monetize, except vague
gestures that some day it will happen. They instead spend hours on how they
are going to do things like: \- "Bee colonies found on the map can be
collected and placed into clay/stone hives" "Eggs. They are in the game now.
Oh, yeah- dragons get eggs too, along with other assorted animals and thinking
beings.."

\- Those are some of the more tangential things in the release logs. I am not
mentioning the release where they added musclature which is tracked for every
being, and used to determine combat, nor am I mentioning the release where the
world generator is simulating economies to determine where field appear on the
world map.

Their style of brainstorming is..., interesting. The elder brother will write
a short story in a fantasy setting. From the story, major plot points which
allowed for the situation to occur will be taken for iteration into the game.
Things like "As to the story's world of eternal darkness, it should be
dangerous to walk alone at night. You never know what will happen." have led
to the addition of bogey men that attack you at night if you are adventuring
alone.

The game itself is complex. Just the procedural world gen is over the top -
First the game creates continents, (and recently an "underworld" cavern system
as well). It also decides the mineral map, and the temperature map. Post
creation, the game then erodes the world by running rivers which feed oceans
and morph terrain.

Once thats iterated over, and an acceptable base created, it begins to
populate the world with starting civilizations of elves, humans, goblins and
megabeasts. After that, it runs a history and civilization simulator for about
a 1050 years. Entire civilizations will rise and fall, cities will be
destroyed, legends created, monsters raised into god hood in that time. One of
the most famous stories has been of an elf child being kidnapped by the
dwarves, being accepted into its society to finally become one of the most
famous Kings ever known. You can read the legends of your make believe world,
to find out who rose, who fell and what really happened. At this point you
have about as much back story as a Tolkien-esque world.

Someone dug through their legends and found the epic story of a single dwarf,
queen and last of her line, fending of hordes of enemies alone in her castle
long after her family had died to the same enemy. The game generated and
tracked the life and death of her family, and the rest of her civilization.
All of this was made clear through the battle logs and lists of dead after
each battle.

Once all of this is done, you can actually start to play. All of that detailed
and loving world gen was just the preamble to what you as a player are about
to do. There are 2 modes, adventure - which is the rogue-like mode, and
fortress mode - where you simulate a dwarven outpost.

Its hard to talk about the game at the moment without sounding like some sort
of super-enthusiast, but it really is everything you would want a fantasy
sand-box game to be. Its entirely procedurally created; all stories are
emergent from events that happen in the game. All of this is by a game in its
alpha, which already has more features than most AAA titles.

Did I mention that the entire thing is done in ASCII?

Its a Sunday, so if any of you want to have some fun reading - take a look at
the hall of legends on the forums -
<http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=41896.0>

I suggest at least looking at :
<http://www.nzfortress.co.nz/forum/showthread.php?t=20768>

The story of the lone dwarf against the world is the legend of Tholtig
Cryptbrain, found here:
[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42702.msg7905...](http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=42702.msg790500#msg790500)

You can also read boatmurdered: <http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-
Boatmurdered/> Its a lets play from the something awful forums and is
hilarious reading. Its also from when the game had a set map and had not
incorporated a z-axis.

DO NOTE: the game looks like the matrix without a graphics pack and is hell
for novices. This game can be used to define for "steep learning curve".
Getting to the top though is well worth it.

PS: please excuse errors in typing and grammar.

~~~
Hexstream
"Once thats iterated over, and an acceptable base created, it begins to
populate the world with starting civilizations of elves, humans, goblins and
megabeasts. After that, it runs a history and civilization simulator for about
a 1050 years. Entire civilizations will rise and fall, cities will be
destroyed, legends created, monsters raised into god hood in that time. One of
the most famous stories has been of an elf child being kidnapped by the
dwarves, being accepted into its society to finally become one of the most
famous Kings ever known. You can read the legends of your make believe world,
to find out who rose, who fell and what really happened. At this point you
have about as much back story as a Tolkien-esque world."

O_O

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endlessvoid94
I was just pondering this yesterday. Specifically the parts about cave
generation. I have ZERO knowledge of this, so this is a great intro.

