BUILD | TECHNOLOGY // PROCEDURAL GENERATION
Standard procedure
As the tools and techniques of automatic creation become more widely used, Craig Chapple speaks to seasoned developers about how procedural generation is being used to develop new and exciting experiences
SOME OF THE BIGGEST games now in development have begun embracing procedural generation.
Last month’s E3 played host to Frontier’s space sim Elite: Dangerous and Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky, surprising attendees with their ambitious plans and enormous universes. In fact Hello Games’ Sean Murray said his studio’s game, created by a small team, would take place in an entirely procedural universe that was “infi nite” in size.
“Even we don’t know what’s out there,” he claimed while on stage.
Top to bottom: Frontier’s David Braben, Serious Brew’s Maarten Brouwer, Kitfox Games’ Tanya Short and SpeedTree’s Kevin Meredith
The technique is used to automatically build levels and environments based on a set of rules and a plethora of assets, but can also be used to randomly generate items, fauna and other gameplay elements. Despite the random factor, however, Frontier CEO David Braben says the game itself should not feel completely randomised. “If it does feel random, then it is bad procedural generation,” he states. “Imagine creating the 3D texture of tree bark up close – it should look just like the bark of a real tree. “How it was created shouldn’t matter – whether from some complex procedural technique mimicking the way the bark formed in real life, or an artist, carefully sculpting the peaks and troughs to match real life. “If the results of both approaches are visually indistinguishable, then the fi rst method should be better, as you can then create as many diff erently curved tree trunks as you like, whereas an artist would have to, largely, start again. It is all about rules – and how to express them so that a procedural system can conform to them.” During the last few years in particular, procedural generation has proved immensely
40 | JULY 2014
popular among indie developers, and is also being used in part by the larger, triple-A studios for certain aspects of their titles. But why is it such a hit with some small developers over more controlled experiences? “While big developers can aff ord to build specialised level design tools, this often isn’t feasible for indies, so procedural generation can be an interesting option as an alternative to time-consuming manually crafted levels,” says Serious Brew developer Maarten Brouwer, an expert in procedural generation following his work on Cargo Commander.
Procedural generation is a black hole of design, ready to eat your life. But in a good way.
Tanya Short, Kitfox Games
“It also off ers the possibility of seemingly unlimited playtime based on a limited amount of assets.”
Kitfox Games creative director Tanya Short, who has worked on games including turn-based RPG Shattered Planet, agrees that procedural generation is a smart business move for many indies, who are to some degree competing with big publishers. She adds that the technique off ers a novelty and design aspect that many are keen to explore further, in turn generating fresh experiences. “In short, we like new things. We like puzzles and problem solving and even a bit of risky adventure – and what’s more of an interesting puzzle than procedural generation?,” she says.
“It’s a puzzle within a puzzle, with a new challenge revealing itself with every playthrough. There’s a reason Rogue and Dwarf Fortress are 20-year projects. Procedural generation is a black hole of design, ready to eat your life. But in a good way.”
KEEPING CONTROL
Short paints a picture of the process of procedural generation as one that is actually tightly managed. She explains that the team fi rst hand-builds an example level in the editor – in her case Unity – and then analyses the various elements that make each level fun. After this, developers can break down the design into rules, deciding how many tiles wide a room and corridor should be at minimum and maximum levels, how treasure and enemies should be placed and even what kind of decorative elements need to be placed and how, among other considerations. “You usually think of procedural generation as writing on a blank page – drawing lines on graph paper,” she says.
“But really, it’s more like taming this wild
infi nite possibility where literally anything can happen, and limiting it to only a certain subsection of things that can happen.” But when creating such a set of rules, how can developers stop a game that can essentially create levels itself from becoming boring and repetitive for players? Is there an issue that a lack of control can, at least to some users, result in an unintentionally monotonous experience?
Short recommends that to avoid a set of rules making a game “bland and samey”, as the algorithm will do exactly what a developer tells it, devs should create some exceptions to a rule.
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