Procedural Generation in Game Design

Making a game can be an intensive process, and if not planned accurately can easily run over budget. The use of procedural generation in game design can help with the intricate and multifarious aspects of game development; thus facilitating cost reduction. This form of development enables games to create their play areas, objects and stories based on a set of rules, rather than relying on the developer to handcraft each element individually. Readers will learn to create randomized maps, weave accidental plotlines, and manage complex systems that are prone to unpredictable behavior. Tanya Short’s and Tarn Adams’ Procedural Generation in Game Design offers a wide collection of chapters from various experts that cover the implementation and enactment of procedural generation in games. Designers from a variety of studios provide concrete examples from their games to illustrate the many facets of this emerging sub-discipline.

Key Features:

• Introduces the differences between static/traditional game design and procedural game design
• Demonstrates how to solve or avoid common problems with procedural game design in a variety of concrete ways
• Includes industry leaders’ experiences and lessons from award-winning games
• World’s finest guide for how to begin thinking about procedural design

Table of Contents

Section I Procedural Generation

Chapter 1 ◾ When and Why to Use Procedural Generation

Chapter 2 ◾ Managing Output: Boredom versus Chaos

Chapter 3 ◾ Aesthetics in Procedural Gene

Chapter 4 ◾ Designing for Modularity

Chapter 5 ◾ Ethical Procedural Generation

Section II Procedural Content

Chapter 6 ◾ Level Design I: Case Study

Chapter 7 ◾ Level Design II: Handcrafted Integration

Chapter 8 ◾ Level Design III: Architecture and Destruction

Chapter 9 ◾ Cyclic Generation

Chapter 11 ◾ Puzzles

Chapter 11 ◾ Puzzles

Chapter 12 ◾ Procedural Logic

Chapter 13 ◾ Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 14 ◾ Procedural Enemy Waves

Chapter 15 ◾ Generative Artwork

Chapter 16 ◾ Generative Art Toys

Chapter 17 ◾ Audio and Composition

Section III Procedural Narrative

Chapter 18 ◾ Story and Plot Generation

Chapter 19 ◾ Emergent Narratives and Story Volumes

Chapter 20 ◾ Poetry Generation

Chapter 21 ◾ Characters and Personalities

Section IV The Procedural Future

Chapter 22 ◾ Understanding the Generated

Chapter 23 ◾ Content Tools Case Study

Chapter 24 ◾ Automated Game Tuning

Chapter 25 ◾ Generating Rules

Chapter 26 ◾ Algorithms and Approaches

Chapter 27 ◾ Meaning

Review

Short, director of KitFox Games, and Adams, the independent co-creator of the popular game Dwarf Fortress, have edited a substantial collection of essays providing concepts and practical application of procedurally generated content and algorithms for game design purposes. Procedural generational the method of creating data via algorithm rather than by hand—is a principle developers can harness to allow the game to generate its own content (settings, objects, and stories) using a series of rules. This method can result in considerable savings over the more traditional game design. Unlike Procedural Content Generation in Games (Shaker, Togelius, Nelson, 2016), the material here is authored by independent developers (with one exception from Blizzard Entertainment), so the information is more accessible and actionable. The book should enable game developers evaluating procedural generation for their games to make an informed decision whether or not to use it. Those with a background in computer science or who are already using procedural generation may learn something new from the contributors’ experiences and methodologies.

–A. Chen, Cogswell College

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

About the Authors

Tanya X. Short is the director of Kitfox Games, the indie game studio behind Moon Hunters and Shattered Planet. Previously, she worked as a designer at Funcom Games on The Secret World and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. In her spare time, she acts as the co-director of Pixelles, a non-profit helping more women make games.

Tarn Adams is best known as the developer of Dwarf Fortress since 2002 with his older brother Zach. He learned programming in his childhood, and designed computer games as a hobby until he quit his first year of a mathematics post doctorate at Texas A&M to focus on game development in 2006.