Some Ramblings.

ArmchairArmada on 2009/04/21 23:21

Due to sickness, unexpected interference, and unclear gameplay goals, I wasn't really able to participate in the recently ended Ludum Dare. I hope to remedy this with one awesome PyWeek!

I know what sort of experiments I want to conduct during the week of the competition, but, depending on the theme, the details may vary. A few days ago I came up with an interesting idea for how to create procedurally generated dungeons that will be varied and interesting enough to, hopefully, cause the player to forget that it was generated with an algorithm. It also takes into consideration of the flow of gameplay, so items, tasks, and perhaps loose story progression may also be generated. I hope to implement this.

Also, in a past Mini Ludum Dare I played around with having a game world be one big bitmap. I was thinking for an overhead game it may be possible to have two image layers, one for below the sprites and one for above. The below area will be ground and things the sprites can be in front of (lower parts of trees, etc.), where the above area can be the canopies of trees or tops of walls. The resolution may not be too high due to memory constrictions (though the world could be chunked into tiles that are loaded in when needed, I suppose.)

If the theme allows for a nature setting I think I may be able to generate visually interesting forests, grassy clearings, rocks, dirt, sand, etc. with combinations of simple procedural generators. I have already previously created random trees and perlin-style noise, so I hope to find simple ways of generating an interesting and visually diverse environment. One thought would be to use large noise to determine the moisture patterns for the world and have areas of marsh, forest, and desert along with corresponding precipitation probabilities. This, however, will depend on the time available, so I will begin with a simple forest.

I was thinking that the theme of 'Sleeping Bears' may lend to a Native American themed game. A lot of adventure games take place in Medieval Europe inspired fantasy worlds, but a game where you have to live off the land while on a quest might be interesting. Foraging for herbs and berries, hunting for meat, gathering woods and building a fire, and, of course, defending yourself against aggressive wildlife may all be interesting gameplay dynamics. I'm not sure if there has ever been a game before where you had to keep your wounds clean to prevent infection before.

These are just some thoughts. I am not sure if any of this actually will be used during the course of PyWeek, but one of my dreams have always been to create a procedurally generated adventure. I cannot get too carries away, though, one week is not a lot of time.

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Comments

Akake on 2009/04/21 23:37:

I, as a huge fan of procedural content would like to say...

saluk on 2009/04/22 01:13:

Hmm, sleeping bears, previously one of my least favorite themes, is starting to look more apetizing. I ADORE the survival rpg genre, what few games there are, and procedural content is always interesting.

cyhawk on 2009/04/22 19:50:

I hope you know Dwarf Fortress, it is played in a very detailed procedurally generated world.