proc_gen
@procgen.bsky.social
Procedural generation researcher. Currently making games.
https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com
#procgen #gamedev
https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com
#procgen #gamedev
Wait, I love random images and don't really need an excuse to post one.
Have some Perlin noise.
Have some Perlin noise.
August 1, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Wait, I love random images and don't really need an excuse to post one.
Have some Perlin noise.
Have some Perlin noise.
Some entries go for traditional-ish Minecraft villages, others take things in wildly different directions.
January 15, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Some entries go for traditional-ish Minecraft villages, others take things in wildly different directions.
Entries from previous years are available on the website: gendesignmc.wikidot.com/wiki:2024-se...
January 15, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Entries from previous years are available on the website: gendesignmc.wikidot.com/wiki:2024-se...
I find this to be one useful way to think about the aesthetic effect a generator is trying to achieve. Are we trying to emphasize the experience of the individual generated artifact, the contrast between similar generated artifacts, or the gestalt experience of interacting with all of the artifacts?
December 21, 2024 at 1:10 AM
I find this to be one useful way to think about the aesthetic effect a generator is trying to achieve. Are we trying to emphasize the experience of the individual generated artifact, the contrast between similar generated artifacts, or the gestalt experience of interacting with all of the artifacts?
And then you could jump to the next galaxy, the seed would rotate the bits over one step, and you'd have a whole new macro-pattern to explore.
December 21, 2024 at 12:59 AM
And then you could jump to the next galaxy, the seed would rotate the bits over one step, and you'd have a whole new macro-pattern to explore.
And so your focus shifts to the gestalt of the trade routes, and you think about things like bottlenecks, long-distance routes, if there are additional trades to make along the way, and whether to go the long way around to avoid pirates
(trade route visualization courtesy of @jatazak.bsky.social)
(trade route visualization courtesy of @jatazak.bsky.social)
December 21, 2024 at 12:50 AM
And so your focus shifts to the gestalt of the trade routes, and you think about things like bottlenecks, long-distance routes, if there are additional trades to make along the way, and whether to go the long way around to avoid pirates
(trade route visualization courtesy of @jatazak.bsky.social)
(trade route visualization courtesy of @jatazak.bsky.social)
Eventually, you have enough cargo space and ready cash that the most profitable trading commodities are worth hauling long distances to find the best price. (With diminishing returns for travel time and fuel cost, of course.)
So you zoom out to the galaxy view and consult your paper notes...
So you zoom out to the galaxy view and consult your paper notes...
December 21, 2024 at 12:45 AM
Eventually, you have enough cargo space and ready cash that the most profitable trading commodities are worth hauling long distances to find the best price. (With diminishing returns for travel time and fuel cost, of course.)
So you zoom out to the galaxy view and consult your paper notes...
So you zoom out to the galaxy view and consult your paper notes...
As you get more cash and upgrade your ship, you get more options for the optimal thing to buy.
You also start thinking multiple jumps ahead; Lave is an agricultural planet and Zaonce is a high-tech industrial planet, so if you buy food at Lave and trade them for computers at Zaonce...
You also start thinking multiple jumps ahead; Lave is an agricultural planet and Zaonce is a high-tech industrial planet, so if you buy food at Lave and trade them for computers at Zaonce...
December 21, 2024 at 12:33 AM
As you get more cash and upgrade your ship, you get more options for the optimal thing to buy.
You also start thinking multiple jumps ahead; Lave is an agricultural planet and Zaonce is a high-tech industrial planet, so if you buy food at Lave and trade them for computers at Zaonce...
You also start thinking multiple jumps ahead; Lave is an agricultural planet and Zaonce is a high-tech industrial planet, so if you buy food at Lave and trade them for computers at Zaonce...
At the start, you don't have much in the way of cash, so you're looking for something that will pay off with just a few tons. You're unlikely to max out your cargo bay unless you load it with cheap stuff...but maybe the margin on the cheap stuff will be good enough.
December 21, 2024 at 12:20 AM
At the start, you don't have much in the way of cash, so you're looking for something that will pay off with just a few tons. You're unlikely to max out your cargo bay unless you load it with cheap stuff...but maybe the margin on the cheap stuff will be good enough.
The planet generator had a number of different dependent variables, such as calculating the tech level via the economy and government type.
Modern PCG might roll a die, but Elite directly grabbed bits from the seed.
Mark Moxon has a deep dive into how it works: elite.bbcelite.com/deep_dives/g...
Modern PCG might roll a die, but Elite directly grabbed bits from the seed.
Mark Moxon has a deep dive into how it works: elite.bbcelite.com/deep_dives/g...
December 21, 2024 at 12:05 AM
The planet generator had a number of different dependent variables, such as calculating the tech level via the economy and government type.
Modern PCG might roll a die, but Elite directly grabbed bits from the seed.
Mark Moxon has a deep dive into how it works: elite.bbcelite.com/deep_dives/g...
Modern PCG might roll a die, but Elite directly grabbed bits from the seed.
Mark Moxon has a deep dive into how it works: elite.bbcelite.com/deep_dives/g...
So I was talking about Elite. At the start of the game you've got your ship, limited cargo space, 100 credits, and whatever planets you can reach in your 7-light-year range.
Your concerns are firmly fixed on individual planets: what can I get here that I can sell at that planet over there?
Your concerns are firmly fixed on individual planets: what can I get here that I can sell at that planet over there?
December 20, 2024 at 11:56 PM
So I was talking about Elite. At the start of the game you've got your ship, limited cargo space, 100 credits, and whatever planets you can reach in your 7-light-year range.
Your concerns are firmly fixed on individual planets: what can I get here that I can sell at that planet over there?
Your concerns are firmly fixed on individual planets: what can I get here that I can sell at that planet over there?
So a forest is defined by its gestalt. I'll quote the OED dictionary definition: "an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts." It has connections to a sense of form and shape.
Sometimes we only care about the overall shape of the generated stuff, not individual trees.
Sometimes we only care about the overall shape of the generated stuff, not individual trees.
December 20, 2024 at 11:38 PM
So a forest is defined by its gestalt. I'll quote the OED dictionary definition: "an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts." It has connections to a sense of form and shape.
Sometimes we only care about the overall shape of the generated stuff, not individual trees.
Sometimes we only care about the overall shape of the generated stuff, not individual trees.
So I sometimes talk about where the focus of a generator is:
If you have a tree generator, do you care about the player's experience of each individual tree as a unique artifact?
Or about the gestalt of the whole forest?
Or an orchard, and you care about the differences between apple trees?
If you have a tree generator, do you care about the player's experience of each individual tree as a unique artifact?
Or about the gestalt of the whole forest?
Or an orchard, and you care about the differences between apple trees?
December 20, 2024 at 11:25 PM
So I sometimes talk about where the focus of a generator is:
If you have a tree generator, do you care about the player's experience of each individual tree as a unique artifact?
Or about the gestalt of the whole forest?
Or an orchard, and you care about the differences between apple trees?
If you have a tree generator, do you care about the player's experience of each individual tree as a unique artifact?
Or about the gestalt of the whole forest?
Or an orchard, and you care about the differences between apple trees?
So it's all down to intentional information density, whether that's encoded in 16k of RAM or a 1:1 recreation of the milky way.
December 20, 2024 at 7:39 PM
So it's all down to intentional information density, whether that's encoded in 16k of RAM or a 1:1 recreation of the milky way.
Taking this further, their star system generator, Stellar Forge, uses real-world astronomical theories to model planet formation. Therefore, each planet you see is the result of a process that can be narrativized. There's far more data crammed into each Elite planet versus one from a random table.
December 20, 2024 at 6:50 PM
Taking this further, their star system generator, Stellar Forge, uses real-world astronomical theories to model planet formation. Therefore, each planet you see is the result of a process that can be narrativized. There's far more data crammed into each Elite planet versus one from a random table.
The Elite: Dangerous devs have talked about letting players colonize other planets, which is the kind of thing that adds additional interactive depth: the planet I discovered might become a place other players build a mining colony.
More interactivity = more meaning.
More interactivity = more meaning.
December 20, 2024 at 6:25 PM
The Elite: Dangerous devs have talked about letting players colonize other planets, which is the kind of thing that adds additional interactive depth: the planet I discovered might become a place other players build a mining colony.
More interactivity = more meaning.
More interactivity = more meaning.
You still need a good generator that can make those interesting outlier planets, but having the player be an active part of curation gives the designer a lot more scope to work with, if that's the kind of game they want to make.
December 20, 2024 at 6:18 PM
You still need a good generator that can make those interesting outlier planets, but having the player be an active part of curation gives the designer a lot more scope to work with, if that's the kind of game they want to make.
Gameplay that directly encourages you to explore the generator can support a lot bigger (and less dense) generative space, because the player is actively engaged in the filtering.
Seeing an unusual planet after dozens of boring, ordinary ones becomes part of the point.
Seeing an unusual planet after dozens of boring, ordinary ones becomes part of the point.
December 20, 2024 at 6:13 PM
Gameplay that directly encourages you to explore the generator can support a lot bigger (and less dense) generative space, because the player is actively engaged in the filtering.
Seeing an unusual planet after dozens of boring, ordinary ones becomes part of the point.
Seeing an unusual planet after dozens of boring, ordinary ones becomes part of the point.
In particular, exploration is a directly-supported first-class gameplay mechanic: you get explicit rewards for scanning planets, particularly if no one has every scanned them before. You can ignore the trading game and spend the entire game exploring the depths of the generator.
December 20, 2024 at 6:10 PM
In particular, exploration is a directly-supported first-class gameplay mechanic: you get explicit rewards for scanning planets, particularly if no one has every scanned them before. You can ignore the trading game and spend the entire game exploring the depths of the generator.
Depth of interactivity is a little more obvious: there's more in each star system plus there's more for the player to do. Where the original Elite 1 planet (and 1 station) per star, Elite: Dangerous has multiple planets, the planets can have rings, you can go inside the rings and mine for space ore.
December 20, 2024 at 6:06 PM
Depth of interactivity is a little more obvious: there's more in each star system plus there's more for the player to do. Where the original Elite 1 planet (and 1 station) per star, Elite: Dangerous has multiple planets, the planets can have rings, you can go inside the rings and mine for space ore.
Elite: Dangerous famously attempts a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way. This facilitates both of the principles, and I think it's worth digging into why it works here are where the limitations are, before you're tempted to go off and do the same.
December 20, 2024 at 5:48 PM
Elite: Dangerous famously attempts a 1:1 recreation of the Milky Way. This facilitates both of the principles, and I think it's worth digging into why it works here are where the limitations are, before you're tempted to go off and do the same.
But then @galaxykate.bsky.social reminded me of all of the other ways you can make mountains. Some of which don't involve elevation heightmaps at all!
November 19, 2024 at 5:53 PM
But then @galaxykate.bsky.social reminded me of all of the other ways you can make mountains. Some of which don't involve elevation heightmaps at all!
One of my favorite #NaNoGenMo novels is thricedotted's "The Seeker", a poetic work that I'd describe as a record of the protagonist's attempt to learn what it is to be human. From reading WikiHow.
![A dream page from "The Seeker", where the protagonist dreams about the concept of DECIDE. The page starts:
==> INITIATE DREAM SEQUENCE...SYSTEM READY
[DECIDE] to leave
[DECIDE] these questions by evidence and...
...reason.i [DECIDE] to take it back and start running..](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gpdihtbjfialgh4qoni4nqkg/bafkreigajq64eycbptzsj2g3lq2ubqveb33a7udtb37l2lowrudvz2ej3i@jpeg)
November 9, 2024 at 1:38 AM
One of my favorite #NaNoGenMo novels is thricedotted's "The Seeker", a poetic work that I'd describe as a record of the protagonist's attempt to learn what it is to be human. From reading WikiHow.
There have been a number of interesting NaNoGenMo projects over the years using many different approaches. Here's a page from Liza Daly's "The Days Left Forebodings and Water" which is a book of generated blackout poetry.
lizadaly.com/pages/blacko...
lizadaly.com/pages/blacko...
November 9, 2024 at 1:23 AM
There have been a number of interesting NaNoGenMo projects over the years using many different approaches. Here's a page from Liza Daly's "The Days Left Forebodings and Water" which is a book of generated blackout poetry.
lizadaly.com/pages/blacko...
lizadaly.com/pages/blacko...
Alessandro Ghignola started work on the first version of Noctis in 1996; the latest available version is Noctis IV + community edits. Players could name stars and share them in a central repository.
Pictured: one of the rare creatures you can encounter.
Pictured: one of the rare creatures you can encounter.
October 23, 2024 at 9:02 PM
Alessandro Ghignola started work on the first version of Noctis in 1996; the latest available version is Noctis IV + community edits. Players could name stars and share them in a central repository.
Pictured: one of the rare creatures you can encounter.
Pictured: one of the rare creatures you can encounter.