Determinance screenshot

Random Generation

Generative content (not a term I especially like) is very very indie.  Why?  Because small teams don’t have the assets to create a huge amount of content.  Computers can do it for us, often very well.

I, however, want to seperate myself out from the general indie affection for randomly generated content.  I’m an absolutely massive fan of generative stuff for a much deeper reason than “it’s easier”.  I’m a complete novelty-freak, and the last thing I want to do is go back to a game and play the same levels over and over.  I’ve put a huge number of hours into F Zero X’s Random mode – despite the generator not being particularly good if I’m honest – and it’s one of the reasons I’m a big fan of Alpha Centauri, Diablo, Bridge Baron, and multiplayer games.  Unlike some people, I do not want the entire experience designed for me by a human unless I’m playing an fps.

Synapse is based in a very large part on random generation.  If you ever find yourself wanting to choose a particular map, I’ve failed.  Synapse was designed from the ground up to be about every level being new.  And thus – to segue nicely into what I did today – I worked on the random level generator today.

When making a game as an indie and especially when creating a game based on original mechanics, it’s difficult to know what to work on next.  EC and I fired off several mails to each other this week based on that.  Well, Synapse has been running off an extremely dodgy random level generator so far, and with the arrival of No Huddle (MORE LATER) I decided that it was vital that the levels started resembling places and moved away from simple cut out parts of a big map.

In general, you have to correctly identify what’s holding your in-development game back.  It’s actually one of the most important skills.  Is the problem that the core mechanic needs work?  Or does the interface just need dragging out of the stone age?  Do you need to hone the control of your character, or do you need more variety?  If you target the wrong area, you waste one hell of a lot of time.

The reason that I decided to work on the random level generator is because I’ve decided to try a new deployment system for No Huddle, where the offense starts in a location on a street, and the defense can deploy inside *any* buildings.   I also want to improve the feeling that you are exploring/breaching an actual location.  (Don’t even get me started on how difficult it is to know when what’s on the critical path is part of the aesthetic… that’s a whole other nightmare).

Anyway, I’ve almost got Random Level Generator version 2 in with Bin’s help I hope to have it fully functioning by tomorrow evening.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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