End-to-End Procedural Generation in Caves of Qud

[@carlitosleonidas3029]

Once dude with the Unix Beard shows up, you know this talk is gonna be good.

[@MrJord137]

unix beard lmfao

[@MrJord137]

Enjoy watching this brilliant talk again btw! ;)

[@urbanozorus]

Man, how do I wish this talk was 4 hours long. So much to learn from these guys.

[@robrobusa]

As someone who can barely program enemy pathfinding, I am so in awe at what people who studied a "real subject" like CS can accomplish. I feel so fucking inadequate.

[@robwaters2948]

@@robrobusa hey, don’t get down on yourself! Anything in game design is possible through dedication and sheer time spent learning

[@arcan762]

@@robrobusa It just takes a long time. Like, decades. These guys are in their 40s.

[@robrobusa]

@@arcan762 Well that's achievable. :D I just turned 33 - almost there, lol. T.T

[@unormal]

@@robrobusa fwiw, Brian Bucklew here, I'm a high school and college dropout. Everything I know you can learn by trying. :)

[@KyleClements]

I want to listen to an entire series by these two. So informative and interesting. The generative history approach for villages is incredible!

[@AnotherDying]

Brilliant talk! Qud is basically one of my favorite games of all time at this point.

[@zachb8012]

No kidding. I don't think I have come back to play a game every few months as consistently as Qud. There's something about the simplicity of it that makes differences of the constant patches noticeable each time I return. Not to mention the world building and sound design makes the game so damn engaging. Most of all though it's fun to come back and play is the world map might be familiar but the procedural aspects of the game make every play through unique, even if you do the same quests and revisit the same locations.

[@soulsmith4787]

I was really looking forward to playing this game eventually after a review by SsethTzeentach. The developers and their community clearly didn't respect him or his gesture, but I didn't think that warranted being completely dismissive of the game. I've yet to confirm if it's true, but I heard on the grapevine that members of the developer's discord sent 'illegal images' to a fax machine where the video author's relative works and got them fired. This is presumably why he hasn't uploaded and also the reason why I won't be supporting the game until I can confirm otherwise.

[@jadedandbitter]

@@soulsmith4787 ...sooo you arent gonna buy a game because some other people who have nothing to do with development of said game MAY have gotten somebody fired? 🙄

[@soulsmith4787]

​@@jadedandbitter The developers have cultivated a community whom they are listening to in order to continue development of the game. A decent amount of said community believes the content creator who was gracious enough to advertise their game is both a nuisance and an evil fascist. There's no levity in their echo chamber because the developer doesn't discourage mischaracterizing the man that advertised their game. They've become increasingly removed from reality with the idea that he's an ever growing threat of 'bigotry'. The 'illegal images' I alluded to in the first comment was CP. The rumor itself is heinous enough that I wouldn't consider giving monetary support to the developer that's amassed that community. I put off purchasing the game at a discount because the developer and their community disrespected the content creator in the snippets he gathered for the review of their game. If this rumor holds water, then I would encourage everyone who's interested in this game not to exchange their money for it.

[@jadedandbitter]

@@soulsmith4787 game developers only make the game, not the community. I bet the guy who made undertale wishes his community was a little different than they are, but it is what it is. Unless the dev directly said to harass the guy, they bear no responsibility for what crazies do, and it's not his job to try to police the community, which he ultimately can't do anyways.

[@DerClaudius]

It's interesting how little functional difference there is between the choices and that you can use strings for a lot of the things that don't hold any meaning after generation, so they rely a lot of people just filling in the blanks and making the story coherent.

[@myxtq4456]

I love Coq 😍

[@kosterix123]

au vin. yes

[@falxgod6848]

Looks like a Dwarf Fortress clone tbh.

[@ataarono]

@@falxgod6848 bait

[@Blav2]

@@falxgod6848 good joke

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@falxgod6848 dude literally mentions 2 books cowritten by Tarn Adams 2 minutes in.. I think he's probably got a good relationship with Toady One at this point

[@timseguine2]

32:39 "So here we have goatfolk, and goat folk are... well they're folkin goats"

[@ZackLivestone]

Thanks for the talk, I'm working on a roguelike and Qud was a huge inspiration, really interesting to walk through the procgen step by step like this. : )

[@KrazyKain]

Awesome, good luck Zack!

[@ZackLivestone]

@@KrazyKain thanks :D

[@kosterix123]

umoria should be your starting point. It's open source, well written c, and the inspiration to all future games.

[@theobrominator]

Interesting talk. I always wanted to know more on how specifically Dwarf Fortress works and this is really close.

[@hurleyman77]

What is the type of map mentions at 41:40? I can't seem to come up with a spelling that Google recognizes...

[@elmundodeFreeman]

Dijkstra Maps

[@cluelessdev3851]

Perfectly timed for my project, AMAZING!

[@CanelaAguila]

While I really admire their work, I cannot help but wonder whether the mountain approach doesn't make the generation loose quite some context in the process. A history that is generated independently from it's cities seems a bit disjointed. I feel like the cities should feed content back to the land-history layer

[@elmundodeFreeman]

Good point. I wonder what are the challenges of implementing that idea.

[@noellelavenza494]

What context/information would need to be fed back in? How is that any different than simply generating the city based off of the land-history? I don't see how it would look any different.

[@Xavaltir]

Wow coincidentally I have been researching procedural generation recently so this was super interesting + perfectly timed :D

[@IamWibbly]

41:27 a seeded what?

[@colinfreyvogel3014]

Dijkstra map

[@SomjadeChunthavorn]

At last I know how to pronounce the game's name right.

[@unluckyyooo6598]

Anyone here know what's the ECA stands for in "ECA with hand-defined prefabs" ?

[@fressfisch]

Thanks, Gilfoyle!

[@PetalousPanoply]

Qud is amazing!

[@thewarriors3048]

Do you think it can be played on an ordinary $400 laptop? 12gb ram, i7, 250gb ssd, integrated graphics.

[@original21011]

@@thewarriors3048 definitely. I also think there are free versions of the game you can try out and see if they work

[@TheJols]

@@thewarriors3048 oh for sure

[@zachb8012]

@@thewarriors3048 Yeah dude. You can play Qud on basically anything but the Switch, unfortunately.

[@sean7221]

@@zachb8012 why not switch?

[@Erikulum]

Deezer map? Dikzer map? Deexer? Dixxer? Dykser? Deekster? Dexter? Deekstr? "I encourage you to look up that technique if you don't know about it" gee, thanks for the tip. ...Dijkstra thanks google, you're awesome

[@badradish2116]

ah the ol dexterity-strength map - "dexstr"

[@ThePC007]

My CS teacher used to say that the hardest thing about the Dijkstra algorithm was spelling its name, haha.

[@emiliasmith8475]

Thank for typing this out I was lost lmao

[@CanelaAguila]

In Dutch one would pronounce it something like Deikstra. Important to remember is that the I and J together form a sound that does not treat the J as a consonant

[@zachb8012]

"The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise." Homie said that in the 80s or something. Goddamn. I hear this quote once in a CS course and 8 years later I'm CONSTANTLY reminded of it when I am reviewing and writing code. Dude was a was truly programmer-Gandalf.

[@nerfinator6]

Hey hey people.

[@michaelgutierrez7980]

Seth here...

[@greenxtian]

Yo

[@sdrawkcab_emanresu]

Hey

[@sowhat2993]

Hello

[@lol22332]

The Merchant’s guild is here I see

[@blisterfingers8169]

43:00 "You can see a few results of this process" They map layout in Qud has got to be it's weakest point. They just look messy with no consistency or logical thought to their layout or placement. Like they're not build for actual beings to inhabit or use. Actually they look like they were procedurally generated by a computer algorithm which is probably not what you want.

[@JsbWalker]

That's my main critique of this system as well, though it's serviceable for this game. My main area of research is AI generated architecture and urban design and some of my research might help remedy this.

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@JsbWalker have you looked into the layouts of the pre-pottery Neolithic cities that existed right before the rise of Uruk?.. The KZbinr Histocrat does a good overall analysis, effectively the cultures would generally layer over old work and just kinda fit in spaces at whatever angle seemed best per situation

[@doctorquid]

This mf said edging. But for real, we love you freehold

[@notaboutit3565]

“We need...*industrial*...quantities”

[@Cpruett]

Honestly he was right that the game is about subverting it but his method is very cumbersome and not efficient.

[@TheGororan]

Is it just me or is the video flickering here and there?

[@monstereugene]

this good

[@khandovarbalest1369]

Caves of Kud Caves of Kwud eeeh CoQ

[@Lola_Greens]

Hay hay

[@cannogabang1999]

Damn my man's excel sheet looks fucked up

[@glass7923]

Okay, but can you add the option to side with Templars?

[@yazuki-wolf]

41:20 Really wish I knew how to spell deekstar. Tried searching, but nothing comes up.

[@jimmyhirr5773]

It's "Dijkstra." The name is Dutch.

[@deusxyz]

This is 2019? Does GDC even do indies anymore?

[@Xd4LEM4ObX]

Fico pensando em traduzir e legendar videos do tipo pra brasileiros porem não sei quanto ao publico brasileiro assistindo videos do tipo

[@DerekSmort]

Quem se importa já aprendeu inglês, o resto é futebol e bunda

[@cormano64]

O público brasileiro só vai se interessar se for acessível, então ter legenda sempre será um elemento positivo.

[@Xd4LEM4ObX]

@@DerekSmort Osheee kkk

[@Xd4LEM4ObX]

@@cormano64 Simm isso que penso, sempre quis criar legenda pra varios videos, mas n sei se ajudaria alguem, nesses tipo de video vejo algo util pra ser ensinado pros br que é game dev, Já que muitos no brasil só cria jogo na base dos assets da propria engine

[@cormano64]

@@Xd4LEM4ObX Se resolver fazer, pode ter certeza que vou espalhar o vídeo.

[@sergesolkatt]

❤

[@ince55ant]

so *thats* how its pronounced

[@TheZerocrossings]

I must have missed the math part of this "Math for Game Developers" talk...

[@jessestewart5109]

He mentioned at the beginning that there wouldn't be any math in his talk.

[@epajarjestys9981]

@@jessestewart5109 But the title says math.

[@phirewind]

The core of what they're doing is basically a mathematical abstraction. The end result is a matrix of numbers that follows a contextual pattern while still being procedurally generated. Think of "this village worships a legendary dragonfly" as just a number in a matrix. It's just an application of math that's so abstract it's hard to recognize. You know, like algebra. ;)

[@chonchjohnch]

@@phirewind shoving numbers into a square does not a matrix make.

[@nonamo5700]

@@chonchjohnch Much of this would fall into the realm of discrete mathematics rather than continuous mathematics like algebra, no? Probability, topology, decision trees/making, graph theory, game theory etc.

[@kip_c]

i love caves of qum

[@presauced]

saying caves of qum is for amateurs. real game developers say 'coq' pronunounced like 'cock'

[@skyblazeeterno]

LOL

[@bladechild2449]

Imagine if they could work alongside people who would put CoQ into a more presentable package

[@Cpruett]

Honestly it's lack of graphics is what makes it better for me.

[@uponeric36]

The game is perfectly presentable

[@hommhommhomm]

The minimalist symbolic graphic is what creates the flexibility for complex systems like in Qud and Dwarf Fortress. Oftentimes it's not possible to represent a tile based world in realistic 3D for example because the size of things does not matter in tile-based but does matter in 3D. A seed is as big as a dragon in many of these games and these kind of issues become huge if you start to make it more realistic/accurate/detailed.

[@pythonxz]

​​@@hommhommhommThe computational load would also be high.

[@hommhommhomm]

@@pythonxzI agree but even with infinite computational load, more realistic graphics would limit what can be included in the game.

[@13deadghosts]

As a certain african warlord would say: "Hey Hey People"

[@turkler1719]

hey hey people

[@McDiezel079]

Yeah but when can we play as the Putus Templar??

[@BunnyChamberX]

Hey hey people!

[@joshuamiller7916]

hey people seth here

[@Jackobisnotenough]

Hey hey people

[@mrosskne]

make putus templars playable

[@Cloroqx]

Laughs in Houdini.

[@noxabellus]

???

[@Hoichael]

? ? ?

[@Dong_Harvey]

? ? ?

[@brynmckerracher3223]

? ? ?

[@addersnap2885]

Comparing the procedurally generated "lore" here to elder scrolls has to be a joke right

[@neolynxer]

Tarn Adams: "Oh, honey, that's cute..."

[@Dong_Harvey]

He credits Tarn at about 2 minutes in by recommending 2 books cowritten by Tarn, one of which was premiering at GDQ Don't get me wrong, Dwarf Fortress is the pinnacle of the genre, but there is no room for toxic fanboyism

[@neolynxer]

@@Dong_Harvey sorry, I admire Tran's dedication and amount of work, which...dwarfs efforts of any other speaker to me. This was not meant to be toxic.

[@inigo137]

@@neolynxer how can it be interpret as anything but toxic? You just admitted that you think that everyone does a bad job except Tarn Adams, lol.

[@Dong_Harvey]

@@neolynxer its OK, but you see it even tripped me up, I tend to make very snarky comments myself, and can easily be accused of toxicity In fact my reaction can be seen as toxic, I accused you of fanboyism, which is just a reactive term

[@niallrussell7184]

This is good as an entry point into programming procedurally generated worlds. Massively extending these techniques would touch on the insane complexity of DF.

[@Roguedeus]

I don't get the praise this talk is getting... It's a garbled mess. Clearly they did a great job making the game, but please never ask them to explain how they did it ever again.

[@crusaderanimation6967]

One hours of math.. like some wise man said: "Yes we doing math here, and nothing even that loli on the other page is sexier than math."

[@poorman-trending]

Can you say “abstract mountain” again please? Jesus

[@deadliestvice5356]

Procedural generation is a cool tool for when you don't want to develop an entire game.

[@Smaxy_]

Most of the time it's for replayability

[@robotpotato6892]

procedural generation can take more time than meticulous level design.

[@deadliestvice5356]

@@robotpotato6892 Let's assume that i believe you without any evidence, who then measures a game's quality based on the time spent with it's development rather then the effort and skill that went into it? Lots of delayed games have proven to be of subpar quality.

[@robotpotato6892]

​@@deadliestvice5356 Quality is subjective and there are a lot of ways to code a game. It's common to see developers talking against procedural generation for that reason, it can increase code complexity and make you spend more time and energy on the game than necessary. If I code a framework with procedural generation in mind, it probably could be easier than make a entire game, but that would be an exception.

[@Lola_Greens]

Ooooooh. That a hot and dumb take

[@LegalPhantom]

The devs of CoQ are the only ones who would actively ban and insult Sseth, the only KZbinr that wanted to promote their game but the fursona of one of the devs was too precious to be subject to the same laws of the game.

[@aries999]

it's possible to kill that npc using a few methods, it's just that the npc (and the rest of the npcs in that area) have an equipment item that can save their life in order to make sure that random bullshit doesn't end up making the main story sequence impossible

[@BIGPILGRIM420]

spoken like someone who hasn't played the game and is parroting the points (aka JOKES) from seth's video. cringe.

[@Cpruett]

@@BIGPILGRIM420 Agreed but Seth's point is meritable. They are capable devs and could easily code in a method that other no playing entities couldn't kill/ destroy important entities. I think the issue was they took all this time to built a extensive world/ story telling framework but then get upset at anyone that points out that limiting that logic in exceptions will only draw massive attention to the quality of those areas.

[@uponeric36]

Actually I would too, for being a fascist, and they definitely don't need his support

[@no-lifenoah7861]

Wah wah wah, call the wah-mbulance

[@judgeomega]

this is all very neat and interesting, but im of the opinion that games should revolve around the player... the game world is just the background playfield, what really matters are the options available and interesting interactions.

[@Show_My_Name_Not_My_Handle]

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Games that "revolve" around the player (me, in my case, ofc) have unerringly felt... artificial. Perhaps this is because they've yet to do a convincing job, but, even if I saved the world from a fleet of evil sentient asteroids firing plasma rockets, the real world still spins on. In story-games that revolve around me, it's very clear that the world the story is in, exists only for the sake of the story. It's not about me, the player at all, but about the story. And that's the problem, for me, with such games. Caves of Qud, unlike those games, does not feel like the world exists only in a story. I can do incredible things, but unless someone was involved, they don't know a hootin' thing about me, or my deeds. The whole of existence, isn't about me, in-game, but the game, itself, _is_ about me. My interactions with it, my explorations, and actions. The world isn't just a background playfield, it is the very thing that allows those interactions, and actions. You can play baseball, just about anywhere. The field, truly, is just a background playfield. But you couldn't play Caves of Qud, anywhere but the Caves of Qud.

[@Nupawru]

Hey hey people

[@ptrukandu]

Seth here

[@bazookaman1353]

@@ptrukandu Did you ever ask yourself, "I wish there was a legendary game where I could shadowy raid?"