Procedurally Generating History in Caves of Qud

[@WilliamOsborneKappa]

Anyone who thinks this is interesting, do Freehold and yourself a huge favour and go buy the game - I promise it's everything it describes itself to be!

[@Robert-vk7je]

I did. I can't decide if I like it better than dwarf fortress adventure mode, tho. Don't regret buying it, anyways. :)

[@DandyGuy]

Indie games innovate so much more compared to their AAA counterparts. Fascinating stuff, Caves of Qud has become a new addiction for me, fantastic game

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

So does this not beat big AAA developers' presentations, in terms of how interesting it is?

[@BackupPodcast]

This game quickly found a place in my top 10 all time favorite games

[@pogo575]

Four people really don’t like rogue likes.

[@amazingblog5593]

hey hey people…

[@haavikwood290]

would you like it if a Woman, stepped in your cereal? Don't answer that.

[@Rickyboi500]

@@haavikwood290

[@fireandwater345]

Makes me want to learn programing!

[@pogo575]

Yaka Yoko Do it! It’s an extremely satisfying skill to have and build on. Even if you don’t make games you have the ability to think “I wish I had a computer program that did [something] for me!” Then you can try to do it.

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

@@pogo575 Yeap not to mention if you work on a computer you can automate all sorts of tasks so that it does the job for you instead of repeating the same manual steps hundreds of times every day. That would save up a lot of your time at work so you can do more productive things, and add more value to your work by using that extra time to improve on some processes or come up with new ones to deliver a better service.

[@SpielplatzATTAK]

this was great, thank you!

[@bumblinggimp]

brilliant talk! very late to the history procgen party here, but it meant I could become the precisely 1,000th person to thumbs up this video 🙂 which brought me great but unnecessary satisfaction

[@kaioxys]

What I'm wondering is how do they deal with sultan on sultan interaction?

[@paulbrookfield4133]

So far it isn't truly happening in the system because the Sultan's are historical entities with no 'live' presence in the game. The factions that pop up related to said Sultans will behave according to their set-up, including sometimes hilarious and violent consequences in otherwise peaceful towns. It's not perfect yet but it's one of my favourite dynamic systems in a game to date.

[@aussenseitermagazin]

👌 Excellent

[@Padierfind]

Nice talk! :D

[@leonardoraele]

That's fascinating

[@АлександрБагмутов]

The talk kinda ruins the game innit? Hard to forget that it all meaningless underneath.. I think this approach to proced creation, which utilizes simple combinatorial expl is very practical and straightforward, but not Very interesting: replay value isn't That far from handcrafted game: maybe 3-5 times more "replayable". Although it begins on the different path when it binds future and past events, but it is just cosmetic, as he underlined many times. I think more interesting approach to world creation is fast gradual evolution according to some rules. DF seems to have more of that, especially regarding map, but not enough still, I`d say.

[@zwoomf]

I can see a couple reasons why they would use their entirely random approach though. Firstly, it is much simpler to work with and maintain than some kind of planning algorithm or even state machine. Secondly, a logical planning/precondition approach to choosing events would likely produce more predictable outcomes and therefore less narrative variety. Seeing as the history is generated to serve the purpose of adding character and making fascinating artifacts, a reduction in variety would be working against this goal. To expand on that, I've experimented with planning algorithms before in a different context, and it can result in very predictable behaviour if the conditions are too restrictive or specific. In my case (FPS opponents) I ended up changing the conditions on a number of actions to be identical, so they are essentially chosen randomly. The result was enemy AI which was more unpredictable yet which felt more challenging and therefore actually more immersive. So, I can see how pure randomness might be attractive in an emergent narrative context with a focus on novelty.

[@harrylane4]

That’s like saying that knowing how much of dnd is made up on the spot makes it less meaningful

[@АлександрБагмутов]

@@harrylane4 😅no no no, although my comment was borderline incomprehensible, I criticized the method, which is randomness. In dnd some randomness is totally ok for the events witch we see as random in our lives, but imagine if main story beats were chosen from the list, by the roll of dice. Like, it is possible, and can be entertaining in some way, but the story would be bad, meaningless, it doesn't react to your actions and so on.. If players are robots which care only for stats, that would be ok. I presumed the story is an essential part in QUD, though.

[@АлександрБагмутов]

@@zwoomf Interesting, thanks. I would agree that it is practically more feasible! Also if we take the purpose of a story to be "to serve the purpose of adding character and making fascinating artifacts", then the approach also seems legit. But I feel that the story should be half a game here, not cosmetics. It is completely different from your example of FPS AI. The feeling that you interact with consistent mysterious world is essential. If you see this talk or your brain picks up on the inner workings of the game, then you'd get the feeling of interacting with roulette table, immersion is dead. Again, approach is useful in other genres, like humor, but not here, I argue.

[@eeanditto9156]

Yeet

[@Shagadelic]

rimworld is better

[@notkamui9749]

@@Shagadelic you're aware that these games are not comparable, or are you being seriously dumb ?

[@Shagadelic]

@@notkamui9749 I was kidding friend, they are two completely different games and i actually enjoy caves of Qud more more.

[@notkamui9749]

@@Shagadelic Oof sorry xD

[@Freezo90967]

F**K Edit: Mum i;m sorryh didi n't mean to sWEAR @THE thanks

[@Freezo90967]

flick*

[@Peters9567]

Great talk. Would be cool to replace the text generation with an llm like chatgpt. Would get some cool stories and events and probably be more coherent

[@put1996]

Did you accidently mute the video? I am at maximum volumn of my speaker and barely hear him.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

The audio's fine for me.

[@MperAule]

Same, audio fine :o

[@put1996]

Ok, I check my Volume Mixer, there are like 6 Firefox slider, and 1 of them is at 5%. (I don't know why Firefox have multiple slider for each tab of video) The video work fine now.

[@АлександрБагмутов]

then delete fkn comment

[@zwoomf]

The volume definitely gets quieter part way through the video. It even dips down even further than back up a little. Couldn't say if it's the video or his actual mic.