Procedural Generation in Game Design

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- 1: Procedural Generation -- 1: When and Why to Use Procedural Generation -- PLANNING WHEN TO USE PROCEDURAL GENERATION -- Integral -- Drafting Content -- Modal -- Segmented -- WHEN PCG IS A BAD IDEA -- Quality Assurance -- Time Restrictions -- Authored Experience -- Multiplayer -- Just Random -- Overreliance on PCG -- WHY USE PROCEDURAL GENERATION? -- Utilitarian -- Unique -- 2: Managing Output: Boredom versus Chaos -- 3: Aesthetics in Procedural Generation -- ATMOSPHERE IN SUNLESS SEA -- ESTABLISHING THE RULES -- BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES -- THE RESULT -- 4: Designing for Modularity -- MODULES AND GESTALTS -- ASSEMBLY MECHANISMS AND GESTALT SPACES -- ENABLING PLAY -- Mechanics as Shared Substrates -- Orthogonality -- Equivalence of Impact -- PLOTTING DESIRABLE GESTALTS -- INSERTING MEMORABLE ASYMMETRY -- REFERENCE -- 5: Ethical Procedural Generation -- TALKING IN CODE -- THE BIG WIDE WORLD -- YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT -- TALKING THE TALK -- THE FUTURE -- 2: Procedural Content -- 6: Level Design I: Case Study -- OVERVIEW -- THE RULES -- HOW IT WORKS -- CONCLUSION -- 7: Level Design II: Handcrafted Integration -- STANDARD DUNGEONS -- CRYPT GENERATION -- BEST PRACTICES -- DUNGEONMANS DUNGEON GENERATION PSEUDOCODE -- DUNGEONMANS CRYPT GENERATION PSEUDOCODE -- 8: Level Design III: Architecture and Destruction -- ARCHITECTURE GENERATION -- Step 1: Calculate the Bounding Box -- Step 2: Split the Box into Regions -- Step 3: Skim Perimeter Regions -- Step 4: Place Connections -- Step 5: Assign Region Types -- Step 6: Make Adjustments -- Step 7: Generate the Regions -- DISCUSSION -- 9: Cyclic Generation -- CYCLES -- USING GRAPHS TO EXPRESS CYCLES -- PATTERNS -- IMPLEMENTATION -- ASIDE: LOCK-AND-KEY ATTRIBUTES -- Locks Might Be Conditional, Dangerous, or Uncertain.

Locks Are Permanent, Reversible, Temporary, or Collapsing -- Locks Might Be Valves or Asymmetrical -- Locks and Keys Can Be Safe or Unsafe -- Keys Can Be Single Purpose or Multipurpose -- Keys Are Particular or Nonparticular -- Keys Might Be Consumed or Persistent -- Keys Might Be Fixed in Place -- TILEMAPS -- DISCUSSION -- 10: Worlds -- BRIEF HISTORY OF WORLD GENERATION -- WHY MAKE WORLDS? -- Exploration -- Expansive or Complex Worlds -- Gameplay Variation -- QUALITATIVE PROCEDURAL GENERATION -- 11: Puzzles -- PROCEDURALLY GENERATING PUZZLES -- Puzzle-Spaces -- Desired Outputs -- PUZZLE GENERATION APPROACHES -- Random Start State -- Backward from Goal State -- Heuristics -- Extra Bonus: Permutations -- DESKTOP DUNGEONS, THE PUZZLE ROGUELIKE -- More Puzzle than Roguelike? -- More Roguelike than Puzzle? -- PLAYER HOPE AS A RESOURCE -- Guaranteeing Solvability -- Generating Hope -- CONCLUSION -- 12: Procedural Logic -- BACKGROUND -- USUAL APPROACH TO PROCEDURAL GENERATION -- A DIFFERENT APPLICATION: PROCEDURAL LOGIC -- HOW THE RULE LOGIC IS GENERATED -- Trivial Case -- Countable Problems -- Not So Trivial: Procedural Logic -- Generating Rules -- Queries: Asking Questions -- Solutions: Taking Action -- IMPROVING THE PROCESS -- Better Queries -- Compound Queries -- Query Contexts -- Better Solutions -- RIGGING THE DECK: RANDOM THAT FEELS GOOD -- Dealing with Degenerates -- Avoiding the Impossible -- PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER -- CONCLUSION -- 13: Artificial Intelligence -- UNPREDICTABILITY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE -- MOVEMENT AND COMBAT -- AMBIENT BEHAVIOR -- EMERGENT PHENOMENA -- CONVERSATIONS -- Dialects -- Conversation System -- CONCLUSION -- 14: Procedural Enemy Waves -- METHOD 1: SPAWN BY TIMER -- Spawn by Timer Pseudocode -- Commentary -- Key Characteristics -- METHOD 2: SPAWN ON COMPLETION -- Spawn on Completion Pseudocode -- Commentary.

Key Characteristics -- METHOD 3: CONTINUOUSLY ESCALATING TOTAL -- Continuously Escalating Total Pseudocode -- Commentary -- Key Characteristics -- METHOD 4: HITPOINT PROGRESSION -- Hitpoint Progression Pseudocode -- Commentary -- Key Characteristics -- CONCLUSION -- 15: Generative Artwork -- TECHNIQUES -- PERCEPTION OF INTENT -- 16: Generative Art Toys -- BUILDING ART TOYS, FOR EXPERTS AND NOVICES -- EXPERIENCE OF ART TOYS -- TRADING CONTROL FOR POWER -- DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF ART TOYS -- Inputs -- Data and Transformations -- Points and Rotations -- Connectivity and Meshes -- Gestural Curves -- Forces and Acceleration -- Rendering -- OUTSIDE THE GENERATOR: JUDGMENT, SHARING, AND CURATION -- CONCLUSIONS: CREATIVITY FOR ANYONE -- 17: Audio and Composition -- PROCEDURAL AUDIO IN SKIPPING STONES -- Sampling -- Pitch -- Implementation -- PROCEDURAL COMPOSITION IN SKIPPING STONES -- Beat -- Scale -- Steps -- Chords -- Motif and Repetition -- CONCLUSION -- 3: Procedural Narrative -- 18: Story and Plot Generation -- GRAMMARS AND STORY GRAMMARS -- GAME WORLD -- STORY MODEL -- RULE DESIGN -- SECONDARY REWRITE RULES -- GAME WORLD SIMULATION -- METRIC-GUIDED GENERATION -- CONCLUSIONS -- 19: Emergent Narratives and Story Volumes -- MOTIVATION -- THE VOICE IN THE MACHINE -- FIASCO: A CASE STUDY -- UNPACKING YOUR THEMES -- GRIST FOR THE NARRATIVE MILL -- 20: Poetry Generation -- 21: Characters and Personalities -- INTRODUCTION -- SOURCE MATERIAL -- REALIZATION -- Selecting Dialogue -- Layering Dialogue Features -- Character and World Interaction -- CREATION -- Orthogonal -- Mechanically Significant -- Easy to Communicate -- Meaningful in Combination -- RECURRING STRATEGIES -- Combining Output from Several Layers of Simulation or Gameplay -- Bringing Character into Every Interaction -- Juxtaposing Events and Interpretation -- Callbacks to Earlier Events.

PITFALLS -- Overgeneralization -- Overrealism -- Untamed Simulation -- 4: The Procedural Future -- 22: Understanding the Generated -- EXPRESSIVE RANGE AND GENERATIVE SPACES -- QUALITIES OF THE GENERATED -- Types of Qualities -- Example -- Formalizing Qualities into Metrics -- Example -- Metrics versus Requirements -- QUALITIES OF THE GENERATOR -- VISUALIZING EXPRESSIVE RANGE -- Histograms -- Example -- Distance-Based Clustering -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- 23: Content Tools Case Study -- SYSTEM OVERVIEW -- EXAMPLE ROOM -- 24: Automated Game Tuning -- STEP 1: SET PARAMETERS -- STEP 2: GENERATE THE GAME LEVEL -- STEP 3: SIMULATE THE GAME -- STEP 4: ANALYZE THE DATA -- STEP 5: VISUALIZE THE DATA AND MAKE ADJUSTMENTS -- CONCLUSION -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- 25: Generating Rules -- MIX AND MATCH -- GAME DESIGN 101 -- THROWING OUT THE RULEBOOK -- 26: Algorithms and Approaches -- RANDOM NUMBERS -- Pseudorandom Number Generators -- Making Use of Repeatable Series -- Seeds and Hashing -- Rolling Dice -- Normal Distributions -- Weighted Distributions -- HEIGHTMAPS -- Box Linear Filters -- Midpoint Displacement -- Perlin and Simplex Noise -- SEQUENCE GENERATION -- Lindenmayer Systems (L-Systems) -- Markov Chains -- FILLING SPACE -- Random Walks -- One-Dimensional Random Walks -- Two-Dimensional Random Walks -- Cellular Automata -- Settling -- Wang Tiles -- PARTITIONING SPACE -- Binary Space Partition -- Voronoi Diagrams -- Dijkstra Maps -- Tree Mapping -- PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER -- 27: Meaning -- MEANING IN GAMES -- MEANINGLESSNESS IN GAMES -- DESIGNER AND PLAYER MEANING -- MEANING IN QUALITATIVE PROCEDURAL GENERATION -- CONCLUSION -- Index.