Be Excellent To Each Other

I spied this article about Beyond Good & Evil 2.

It sounds very exciting indeed and I dearly hope it succeeds where it needs to.

But I really don't think I'm a fan of procedurally-generated spaces. I mean, what's the point? To have something endlessly playable? I don't want to play something endlessly. I want to finish something and move onto the next thing.

I want to have an experience that's been designed to be the best it can be, not that I luck out on some brill randomly-generated level. That doesn't mean I want to play something on rails (I don't particularly like Uncharted games because I feel like there's an invisible hand constantly scooching me from one encounter to the next). I love emergent gameplay such as the like you get in Far Cry (though its maps could do with being half the size and denser with meaningful locations).

I started No Man's Sky last week and after a couple of hours of admittedly intoxicating gameplay as I explored some lonely planet surfaces, mined some rocks and sheltered in my ship, I've decided that, after visiting five planets, I've already seen them all and have no need for the unlimited number on offer. I'm already looking for my next game to play, because I feel like I've seen all No Man's Sky has to offer, which is patently absurd, but there you have it.

Or am I missing the point of procedurally-generated stuff? Does it serve a purpose beyond offering the player an endless supply of different shit to go at?

It can work brilliantly if the game mechanics are designed around it (see Spelunky). Sadly however it's often used instead of good level design.

It depends on the game I think. I think it has it's uses. I like that in Minecraft you can change the seed and that's your world and nobody else's. Or in the new Dirt 4 Rally game it can procedurally generate new stages. This works well because otherwise you start to learn the courses and stop listening to the notes until it stops being a rally game.

I think No Man's Sky could have worked really well too with a bigger budget and more time in order to place a lot more interesting things to spawn within the worlds so that you don't feel as though you've seen anything as quickly as you do.

I did wonder if laziness/"efficiencies" are a reason for its implementation.

Back to BG&E2 - I just watched the announcment video on that page. It looks incredible. But it sounds horrible. Why are they all effing and blinding? BG&E was by no means a kids game, but had a charmingly odd tone to it that was definitely PG rather than 15. This feels like its borrowing dialogue from Far Cry or GTA.

It works well in Binding of Isaac, as that's not a deep game and intended for quick playthroughs and multiple replays. I was about to mention the old Saturn game, Virtual Hydlide of a game that did it badly, but in double-checking my facts, I found this -



So, not procedurally-generated at all.. turns out it was just a crap game.

Your face is procedurally generated.

On a low budget.

Rogue Legacy (which is great), Nuclear Throne (which is AMAZE) and Enter the Gungeon (also fab) are also examples of how procedurally generated worlds can keep the gameplay fresh.

These games would be easier to complete and far far less interesting on multiple playthroughs without the rogue elements. There are players out there that have hundreds of hours playing these games. They wouldn't do this unless the repeat experience was any good.

I've got doubt in my mind that decent procedural generation is not easy or "lazy" to implement either. I bet it's bloody difficult to program effectively whereas creating a few static levels might be the quicker alternative but make for a much less interesting and more disposable experience.

Also, the games I've mentioned above all have endings (and multiple endings too) so you can complete them and move on when you've had your fill.

Not really touched upon in the wikipedia article but one of the first procedural generated games I came across was

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven ... video_game)

By default you started with a fairly plain 'real world' map , however there was a generation tool and you put in a blank disk and it made a whole new map for you which would be different to everyone else

http://procedural-generation.tumblr.com ... ned-by-the

My thoughts on randomly generated levels: fuck off.

I mean, how do you know if you're getting better, or just getting lucky?

I don't think I've ever played one of those type games that I actually enjoyed*, so the whole idea can gerrinbin as far as I'm concerned.

*I hated Spelunky and Binding of Isaac before anyone says anything.

If you keep getting luckier then you're probably getting better.