Procedural Generation - How Games Create Infinite Worlds - Extra Credits

Procedural generation can be used to create almost any kind of content, but in games, we usually see it used to create levels, enemy encounters, and loot drops. This random element allows games like Diablo to offer players infinite replayability, since every dungeon run will both look different and yield different results. This approach does have its weaknesses, however. Handcrafted levels will always be better at delivering a powerful experience that's mapped to the game's story pacing.
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[@DakotaBernacki]

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupry

[@alexandertoucan4956]

Ooh that's a good quote

[@NStripleseven]

Huh. Cool. I honestly have absolutely no idea who that is, but cool.

[@Gutagi]

Did he really say this, i tought he was a writer...

[@plyrni3]

de Saint-Exupéry* No offense

[@amessiah560]

This episode kinda sums No Man's Sky potential and risks

[@ichbinein123]

AMessiah Indeed. It can easily become a whole lot of nothing. Just like Elite: Dangerous. A mile wide, and an inch deep.

[@shotgunvsheart4751]

NMS is even promoted as a whole lot of nothing, not because you can't create your own adventure but because you can. trading, exploration and space fights. it is a survival game in space, if anything the lack of content makes it realistic, especially due to the size of it. help pirates or help traders, you will allways find space stations aka inhabitants in space. your story, your decisions, totally open world. while there will be planets without life - that is real space, space exploration. if they wanted more content in a smaller universe they could've done that, they are doing it like this because they don't want you to be able to go to all planets in your life, the content are precudurally generated alterations of the same basic model - with animal types, the size ranging and either living on land, water or flying. there is enough content out there on youtube for you to realise that you can trust this game to be fulfilling, unless you don't really want a game like this. or if you are to used to be told what to do and find the complete lack of guidence to be disturbing, aswell as finding the "lack of information" about the game frustrating. to clarify, the planets will be extremely well made, close enough to hand made that you will only be able to tell the diffrence because your try or because you allready know about it and can't stop comparing.

[@shotgunvsheart4751]

TheRezro sorry when I wrote survival I ment as a part of the perspective of the player in the story/game, not that the survival aspect would be hardcore and death means much. everything else that you addressed can easily be refuted if you'd think oppositly about the game instead. not that you aren't entitled to be skeptical but there really are a lot of content on the internet with enough details to indicate that this game is atleast more likely to be good as opposed to the others, as a developer their game is solid in what they've shown, there is a video showing " a behind the scenes tour of no man's sky's technology " here on youtube, very basic and open about it. they won't give you much more information before release because they don't want to ruin the experience sensation for the players, so if you don't want to feel convinvince by the known information then you'll just have to wait until there is gameplay out on youtube. they don't want to overexplain the game, they aren't hiding the faults with it, they want to give the players that experience many drawn to this game wants, when it is done.

[@thomasmcdipper3727]

how wrong were you? LOL

[@BionicKing]

I remember when some friends were telling me about how excited they were about procedurally generated worlds, and as a computer scientist I just thought, "That sounds like it would be really hard to make an algorithm generate compelling content." Didn't stop everyone from pre-ordering a mediocre game though. Shows the power of buzz words.

[@danielcampos1715]

0:17 I need that cup. I NEED IIIIIIIIT!!

[@ClaudeThePianist1]

daniel campos *We need

[@somebodyelse5294]

Claude Wakes *Everyone needs

[@WillWatches]

We need an extra credits store!!!

[@Kyman102]

William Mcmeekin Seriously, they'd make bank off the Game Mug and a little plush Micro-transaction-raptor.

[@danielcampos1715]

michael petras Everybody needs a thneed.

[@TheSilentFool]

Hey if you think the worlds in DF are the only thing procedurally generated you haven't scratched the surface. Literally EVERYTHING in DF is procedurally generated. Music, poetry, art, the landscape, artifacts, characters and their personalities, gods and mythology

[@imnotherenow200]

What's DF exactly?

[@birdenand]

ImNotHereNow probably dwarf fortress

[@imnotherenow200]

@@birdenand oh yeah. I was guess Daggerfall with its procedurally generated dungeons

[@jonmosin8820]

Makes me think of the first time I played minecraft. Medium sized frozen island with 2 trees

[@zombiedude347]

Jon mosin. I can't count all the times I spawned on remote islands with no trees. I'm glad they fixed the terrain gen.

[@jonmosin8820]

zombiedude347 for me it was a challenge and it was a lot of fun by the time I was done with that world

[@Kartoffelkamm]

Yeah, me too. A stone block beneath me, at least 4 blocks lava in every direction, and I´m like "challenge accepted". It took me a few attempts, but I eventually figured out I could run, and jump while doing so, and got out of there. :)

[@chickeninabox]

A Village, I still have that world.

[@voldlifilm]

My problem with procedural generation is that the world tends to feel samey. Wherever you go in Minecraft, the forests are basically the same forest and the deserts are basically the same deserts. This is one of the reasons why I am skeptical towards the "infinite space" sims that are on the horizon. After a few hours you begin to see the code and the "rules" with which the space was built, and after that it becomes just an infinite scope of "more of the same".

[@BlackJar72]

Lars Erik Volden I think it depends a lot on the type of game. For example, a rogue-like or some variations of shooter can work great with procedural generation for just creating an unfamiliar map to run through and fight. (The Oblige level generator kept Doom interesting for me long after I knew the original levels too well to find them challenging.) I also like the idea for games like city builders and strategy games -- I preferred SimCity 2000's procedural maps over the small handful found in SimCity 4 or 2013 (not the specific maps per se, but the endless variety). OTOH there are several things you aren't going to get -- coherent lore, narrative, non-mad-lib quests, and really clever traps or tricks that aren't simply re-used endlessly all require human creativity. You are correct that procedural generation can get repetitive also, sooner or later you repeat content that is technically different but similar enough not to seem new (or actually identical of a lot of prefabs are used) -- this is another reason it works in some kinds of games better than others, in in some for longer durations that others.

[@HunterMayer]

Lars Erik Volden Its going to be very subjective, but I was blown away with Dwarf Fortress and Stone Soup, and a few newer 'ascii art' (dare I say nethack-ish?) games like CogMind. That stay away from higher end graphics. Never had a world or a replay every feel the same, certainly some elements here and there, but never a cohesive sameness like a minecraft biome (its substantially more diverse now with more biomes imo, still shy on surface challenges). And I really like the director in Left 4 Dead and how it filled the event with tension, even if predictable at times, mostly because good players don't let the director get the drop on them if they can help it. Once you know a generators rulesets I think its all predictable... and suffers from sameness. Just go wrap your head around dwarf fortress if your looking for some seriously in depth generation. Although its crazy at times, but others it profound in the absence of some details, your own mind fills in the blanks better than any program probably could.

[@TheByrel]

AlphaSquadZero Yup, you were missing key strategies. ;) Elliptic (one of the devs) has done a streak (consecutively won games without repeating the same class-species combo) of >50 games. Nearly all games are winnable with perfect play and any decent combo. OTOH, I probably squished 150ish characters before winning, despite having roguelike experience. The learning curve is high and rewarding

[@BlackJar72]

Changing quantities (tuning the generator) is also done by the Oblige level maker for Doom(and my Doomlike Dungeons) by use of themes as well. I used to make Oblige do radically different kinds of levels by hacking the themes to make if generate things like cities (unfortunately Doomlike Dungeons doesn't seem to have quite as much flexibility in this as its inspiration). You can change variable, include multiple generation algorithms to draw from, etc. There is some limit though to what you can have it generate -- having it create truly new algorithms own is probably not doable unless someone has invented true AI and not told me. One thing I can say -- after playing hundreds of Oblige levels for version 3.57 alone is that none of them felt or seemed like the same level. But after a while you do notice certain motifs that generate. Eventually enough to figure out some general principles of the generation from observation without reading the code. Not the same, and still interesting, but the patterns become clearing over time. Its also interesting to point out that beta versions of Minecraft actually did sort-of create biomes by varying certain characteristics smoothly based on real ecology and climatology, yet beta 1.8 and since abandoned the current system of creating patches of consistent biomes. Also, anything that generates in-game (needed for "infinite" worlds) does have some constraints that are much less for anything generated out of game (at start, between levels with a loading screen, or with a separate utility like Oblige). Generating out of game you can afford to process more, catch and correct more bad generation, the few extra seconds being no big thing. Generating in-game you have to balance good generation with potential lag caused by world generation.

[@thewalri6199]

My god, I'm sitting here reading all of these replies about game level design and I can't get over how insanely awesome this community is. You can't find comments like these anywhere else

[@nashew7732]

Okay but can we buy that mug James was drinking from near the beginning?

[@MaaveMaave]

Nashew I would pay money for that

[@SoulSurivor]

Nashew I was about to ask the same xD

[@joshuarichardson6529]

Nashew You just need to buy a green mug from the store and paint a face on it. Black and red paint, a green mug, and a paintbrush. It'd cost maybe $10 to make. You could probably make it in under an hour.

[@symbioticcoherence8435]

you can: store.dftba.com/products/extra-credits-game-face-mug

[@thedonmega75thelastdon67]

Nashew ggg

[@Glandorray]

So basically- you're the architect, but the computer is the labor crew. Gotcha.

[@Mr00dark]

Man, this place is fantastic! Everything about this is great. Great people, thorough content with high quality of production put in, while not overwhelming the viewer.

[@LimeyLassen]

This episode menaces with spikes of onyx and hematite. At 1:36 is engraved an image of the spikes in malachite. The spikes are menacing.

[@ifm2181]

Limey Lassen In my very first game, the first artifact ever made was a sphalerite scepter, with sphalerite waves on it, and a picture of itself on itself. In sphalerite.

[@Mateo-oq7ui]

Limey Lassen On the item there's an image of a player, dwarves and Onul Randomlastnamethatmeanssomething the Forgotten beast in microline. The dwarves are dead, the player is crying. The Forgotten Beast is laughing.

[@syrelian]

Limey Lassen I need to think about getting into DF, I've read LPs like Headshoots, and laughed at the Artifacts that theoretically should describe themselves infinitely (eg an Item has a picture of itself on it, well then that picture should have a picture of itself on it that then has a picture of itself and so forth, whatever piece of Coding Logic prevents the game from diving into itself like that is pretty interesting to me, even if its actually pretty basic) and the horrible modes of death and destruction, also Badasses like Detective Holistic, and that other one that chased a Kobold through Lava in just an Adamantine Chest Plate and whacked it with a Backpack

[@Mateo-oq7ui]

Cloudmonkey Mate do you even Boatmurdered? That's just raw insanity, the raw material from wich other forts (and soap) are made of.

[@syrelian]

***** Its FUN losing, also never let the clowns out till your ready......or do so and watch the Fort go mad, hell, if you have the resources, arm everyone with Cottoncandy Maces and Hammers

[@randysewell3199]

Great episode! Procedural generation is the foundation of the Civ game I am working on and getting the world to generate in a natural way has been extremely satisfying.

[@AlloySevenVideo]

Insightful and informative as always team. I'm learning a lot from your shows. Thanks for all your hard work!

[@davidnoguera1470]

This channel it's incredibly interesting! Can't get enough of it !

[@powersurge4290]

It's possible to make the perfect RNG based game, but as long as there's accessibility. Imagine if Minecraft built a floating castle up high in the sky by "mistake" (RNG) instead of ground, if it where another game you'd be screwed out of that content, except in this game you can build your way to it, fixing the issue of random mistakes casting you away from content. As long as a RNG game has this kind of accessibility (whether is through building, destroying, or simply traveling mechanics),the game will succeed. As a matter of fact, RNG mistakes with the right accessibility can create the best experiences (mistakes made by the game can become goals and adventures).

[@zancloufer]

Sergio Bon Actually some of my more interesting Minecraft experiences is when the RNG was broken, or in later versions, when I broke it. In most games if your spawn on a island surrounded my Lava your effed. In Minecraft is becomes a challenge to build a tunnel and/or bridge to traverse your new home of the Lava planes.

[@taiiat0]

wide variety like that does indeed make more interesting experiences. less homogenous, and that's good, you get variety. yes, sometimes it's way harder than otherwise. whatever, it was interesting. a Player shouldn't be interested in getting to the win state or whatever it has for that, instead should be interested in a good journey. if there were floating islands or structures and such, that would be a great addition, as that's distinctly different from everything else around it. (and you can make it pretty accessible by having a waterfall off the side due to how liquids work in Minecraft - and the waterfall makes it look prettier too, so). similarly, Lava fields are awesome too, making it look like Geological functions exist. Minecraft technically has them.... but they're only small pools, large fields to break things up and make another Biome type where there's a lot of Lava with moderately sparse ground is distinctly different, so is interesting. honestly, the least homogenized Biome that it has, is Mushroom. and that shit's pretty rare to see. not surprising though, since it's kind've overpowered, and is the only non-traditional/'realistic' biome that it has in the normal world space anyways. (Nether and Ender are distinctly different, but aren't the default game state, and are only one biome. Ender is also a place you spend very little time in, as there's no reason to be there other than to Kill the Dragon or perhaps farm Endermen). and it's a shame that the standard world is so homogenized. there's some interesting stuff, but most of what the thing generates nowadays is rather bland.

[@Mateo-oq7ui]

Sergio Bon It is possible to make the perfect RNG game. It's called Dwarf Fortress.

[@101jir]

Sergio Bon Well, "perfect" only by some player's standards. In the example zancloufer gives of being surrounded by lava, for some players it is a challenge to figure out what to do about it. Others just get frustrated and go into table-throwing mode. How much RNG to have in a game is like how much salt and/or pepper to put on your potatoes. Some people prefer to go without entirely, others have more salt and pepper than they have potato, though they are considered to be the "strange" group.

[@KainusGulch]

Mateo Pedro Gonzale de Azcuenaga As much as I adore Dwarf Fortress, it's not there yet to me. There's so many more things that can be done that make it better. There's a reason it's still in and Alpha/Beta stage of developement.

[@missedthebandwagon976]

Congratulations on 500,000 subscribers!

[@Drrolfski]

Besides No man's Sky, Star Citizen should be an interesting game to watch out for when it comes to procedural generation.

[@GokutheBlack]

Does it even have an official release date yet?

[@Drrolfski]

Nope but you can play it along the development and they're about to show some pretty spectacular procedural stuff at this year's Gamescom. Single player campaign (Squadorn 42) should probably be out by Q2 2017.

[@GokutheBlack]

+rolf ski Seems pretty exciting,but what's with having to buy the packages to be able to test the game? Looks pretty much like pre-ordering

[@Drrolfski]

Goku SSJ God Son These packages could be considered pre-ordering or early access, although they offer expensive ones as well if you really want to support this game. It's what gives this game a crowd-funded status. If I were you I would test this game for free the coming week (it's a Gamescom promo) and then buy a start package of 40 dollar with the Mustang ship if you like it and want to keep playing it some more. If you use this referral code you get 5000 ingame credits for free as well: STAR-9M32-LH75.

[@GokutheBlack]

rolf ski Thanks for that! In that case,I'll be looking forward to next week.

[@7poey]

It's such a coincident I found this channel. I'm 14 and want to be a game designer I've already started learning unity and other things like Python and Java, but I also like history and I was watching a culture shock video I. Game theory and they recommended your channel for history so I thought I'd check out extra history and I enjoyed your videos and now I've found out that you do things like this and I'm really happy that I've found a channel that can help make my games more engaging and fun. So I just wanted to say thanks for helping me achieve my dreams.

[@MLaurenavicius]

Finally the piece of info I needed, spot on, dude!

[@Ins4n1ty_]

OMG I was just starting up a project using procedural generation, good thing you guys made this video now, gonna watch it asap XD

[@Zerlye]

Great video ! I'll write a essay for university about procedural generation in videogames and this video summed it up really well for me. Thanks a lot :)

[@Puffycheeses]

Dwarfs fortress generation is amazing it's so in depth and it generates SO much stuff

[@DarkGloComics]

Dude, this video helped me understand something I was trying to explain in my own video. Thanks! SUBBED. LIKED. SHARED.

[@TowerHyena]

It's great to see how the episodes have changed now from more "we'll talk about this in the future" to more "here's an episode where we talked about this, this and this"!

[@linkashh]

Congratulations ! Amazing video as always Cheers from Brazil

[@Litvac]

Congrats on 500k subs! :D

[@Xxlibra1018xX]

I think you did a pretty decent job of explaining procedural generation to a layperson. I for one am a huge fan of such systems used in gaming, specifically for the reason you mentioned of having infinite content in my game to experience and never get bored with, or have a game that you can just memorize every layout & enemy position, so it forces you to use skill vs. memory to advance. I know there will be people on here that say they hate procedurally generated games due to everything starting to feel the same after a while, and to that I say that not all procedurally generated games are alike. Some are designed very well, and offer constant diversity enough so that you don't get bored with the results ever. Such games I can think of in these scenarios are Dead Cells, Cryptark, Flinthook, Darkest Dungeon, The Swindle, Enter The Gungeon, A Robot Named Fight, Bloodborne's Chalice Dungeons, XCOM: EW, Steamworld Heist, etc. There are games however where their procedural generation systems are poorly implemented, and things definitely can start to feel the same after a while. Examples for these that come to mind would be like Bit Dungeon (the first one, it got better on pt.2), Soulblight (still fun, though), 20XX, One More Dungeon, Moon Hunters, Neuro Voider, Wizard of Legend, Vaccine. I think the genre of game you're trying to make can have a significant impact on if it's a good candidate for procedural generation or not as well. As you can tell from the amount of games in the genre that implement this system, it really works best on roguelikes, although that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the only genre that it works for. Games that you can sit down and do quick play sessions though do seem to work better for this than others. It obviously does work well on some other genres, though, like the Bloodborne example I gave. Having the majority of the game lovingly handcrafted, but then offering the procedurally generated Chalice Dungeons that you can infinitely go back to for a new experience each time was an absolutely brilliant move on From Software's part in my opinion. It gives you the best of both worlds, and shows that this system can actually be implemented well in the action rpg genre. It also works extremely well in a lot of good strategy rpgs such as XCOM and the entire Disgaea series that has the random item/equipment dungeons. In these cases, I think it works extremely well, but only because the developers took the time to slowly create a strong system that would generate good content that works.

[@xantog9422]

Thanks Extra Credits I was asking myself this a couple of days ago!

[@Danmarinja]

Congrats on 500k!

[@Kabbinj]

Quoting my professor: "If you call PCG random one more time, i will smack you in the head with this book" PCG (procedural content generation) is not random, its procedural! :P Random content generation would be terrible! ;)

[@Absolia24]

One thing I didn't like about Minecraft's generated world was that the biomes didn't mesh really well. Suddenly you'd go from being in a lush tropical forest to then being in a barren frozen wasteland. I think it would be beneficial if at some point they introduced barrier regions. Medium sized areas where trees thin out and whatnot. They seem to have a color mixing thing going on already, but extend it beyond the few blocks it is. Of course, you wouldn't need barrier regions created for biomes that mix well already. (I.E. the different types of forests.)

[@Jumper706]

Just wanted to say as a big fan of games that use procedural generation (Dungeons of Dredmore, Ziggurat, Risk of Rain) and as a game programmer I really liked this episode and it gave some nice food for thought for my next project. Thanks

[@EndlessRecursion8]

I hope this video gets a 2021 update. I would love to see anything about procedurally generated systems, I.E. skill trees, stats, abilities, etc

[@Nintony58]

one thing you need to watch out for is people cataloging the content in these games. I used to love watching the updates for minecraft until I realized it was just creating a checklist for all the content in the game. Instead of just waiting for it to show up players would actively search for anything added to the game effectively canceling out the random nature of it.

[@boomerang256]

500,000 subs! We you are amazing! Will you do a special episode for the occasion?

[@draco18s]

Thanks for this episode. Procedural Content is an aspect of game design I enjoy making, and while this episode didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, I'm glad you're touching on it. I'd love to see more in the future. I've got a proof of concept I put together a few years ago showing I could proc-gen unit balance in an RTS, another for towers in a TD, as well as a Minecraft mod that creates artifact items. So yeah, its definitely possible to proc-gen anything. I'd also like to shout out Cogmind. The developer there has really hit the procedural nail on the head. I've yet to try it out, but I've read all of his design entries. His enemies could be proc-gen, but they're not (giving the player the ability to recognize foes) as well as hand-crafting some rooms and procedurally creating the rest.

[@jasperburkett6545]

I really love the diverse characters they use in these videos.

[@tasoganedude]

0:17 I want that mug. It looks cute. Procedural generation example: Endless Runner games

[@purplecatgamer]

Procedural Generation is pretty much necessary for rogue-likes which have been gaining popularity. The way each generator is designed for the game can be interesting game design in itself, such as binding of issac using it's set of rules to make sure floors have specific room types each time but having lots of different combinations and builds of the total floor plan.

[@mage1over137]

Extra Credits so few points I feel you over looked. First Procedural generations isn't always to produces random things. In fact the technique was originally used to produce complicated images in way that they are always the same. So one example of this in Elder Scrolls a lot of the environment is generated by procedure methods in order to give that natural random look, but they always use the same seed, so not change the landscape. If they didn't do this they would have store into memory locations of the trees, grass, rocks,ect. The other point about cost, I would say for the most part these algorithms already exist, and for 90% of the actually work can be borrowed by well thought out procedure system all ready. For example generating a random dungeon in game like net hack, or ADOM, follow well defined algorithms that can be modified from a online tutorial. That being said procedural system are just one tool that have a very specific uses.

[@gregoriussoedharmo1206]

mage davee Exactly, this is how some of the old games pulls their stunt. Take Elite for example, it can generate a huge (at its time) universe using procedural generation, but all players would experience the same universe because the dev use a single carefully selected seed to generate it.

[@nightazday7988]

For me my definitive experience with procedural generation is the Item world in Disgaea. The first one is notable in that it ran into some of the problems you mentioned. That there was a chance (pretty small chance, but a chance nonetheless) that the floor would be completely unwinnable due to the placement of the monsters, special panels, and exit. If you didn't have a special technique or a special item you would have to restart without saving hoping you saved before you entered said item world. Later games took care of that by making the special panels not effect the exit.

[@jahkra9259]

Anyone here played Don't Starve? I thought it did procedural generation really well!

[@octuplex]

You mentioned that you could talk about this stuff for hours given the chance, and I would like to say I would love a podcast if you guys made one. 1-2 hours of you guys discussing a theme like these episodes, maybe bringing on guests from the industry to help discuss the topics from their perspective.

[@DJoppiesaus]

I once had a rogue clone thinggy and I created a procedural generation system for it. It was super hard but super fun. It took a lot of time considering when you play the level, but the power is that it's random every time.

[@JosephLarson]

When talking about procedural generation I always like to remember Elite, one of the first 3D space shooters and trading game, made before computers were really ready to handle that sort of thing. The media it came on, the infamous floppy disk, didn't have enough room for the massive game world the designers wanted to create so instead they procedurally generated it, but from a fixed seed, meaning it was always the same. So there you go, procedural generation can also overcome hardware limitations.

[@monish1478]

What happened to Design Club?!

[@General_Nothing]

monish1478 The world may never know...

[@davidjessie8228]

Very helpful. Love the content. I do wish you had another sub-channel looking at code in games, because a Minecraft code overview would be *SO* cool plus it would be a good way to see infinite world generation in practice. ;)

[@HoiPolloiNtertains]

Not going into game design.Still watching every EC video.Quality stuff. :)

[@OldGreyBeard100]

Thank you for pointing out the "quasi-random" thing. RNG and PG are yet another tool in the box, but I had a friend question the actual randomness of numbers in a program or game. I remember reminding him of the poker games in Far Cry 3, saying that my hands when playing were "realistically unlucky". XD

[@Kunzopolis]

Thus far, I have found that the best use of procedurally generated content has been the level creation process for Invisible, inc. Really like the way levels are created in that game.

[@Paikerchu13]

The coincidence game is strong. I literally just started programming a roguelike yesterday.

[@jewknowwho8178]

something I always thought would help with minecrafts procedural generation of structures is for when it is generating structures (mainly villages) it first decides what level the village should exist on then clear all blocks in a rectangular prism or cube (maybe plus a few) that a village (or whatever structure is there) would take up (it would also add blocks where there was only air) this would ensure that structures form perfectly every time (it would probably also be wise to somehow tag the area so that no strictures can spawn within x amount of blocks of the first structure thus avoiding overlap)

[@Roxor128]

More limited forms of procedural generation could be used to save work for human level designers. Rather than having to manually build the frame and windowsill when making windows in a room, just mark out a rectangle (or maybe even some other shape), mark it as a window, pick a frame style out of a library and let the computer handle the details. "Handling the details" here would involve an artist with a procedural toolbox (geometric primitives and ways of combining them, plus a similar set of primitives for making textures) designing the window frame and testing the formula with a range of possible window sizes and shapes, then once they've got something they're happy with, they can save it into the library for the level designers to use. Thus, the computer now knows how to make "Window, Style 7" and can perfectly fit it to the space specified by the level designer, allowing the level designer to focus on good layout and not on modelling every single detail of the level.

[@lathamhendrickson2028]

I'm surprised that you didn't talk about the potential metaphorical applications of procedural generation, like how The Binding of Isaac used it to represent an endless hell.

[@MADMACHlNE]

You guys really need to do an episode on emergence.

[@JoarMusic]

The adventure mode in my game Strayspells uses a level generator. Your video was interesting for what I should do with it later.

[@PINGPONGROCKSBRAH]

1:43 One of the best pictures I've ever seen in this series.

[@rivalz170]

That is quite the cup there, James.

[@silverharloe]

ahhhh, nethack. I remember thee quite fondly.

[@I_can_do_20_push-ups]

I love procedural Generation SO MUCH

[@AraliciaMoran]

Going back to this video after a week, I'd like to note that procedural generation has a wider scope than just level/environment generation. It could be used to potentially generate anything : assets (sound, textures), items (like some games allready do), or even IAs. If you have an IA creation tool, you can plug a procedural generator on top of it to have more variety in the way creatures behave.

[@samanderson7057]

AC:5(s) and TES:Oblivion used procedural generation then hand customized them. Also it is possible to procedurally generate around core areas or just in certain game modes/regions. Joining narrative heavy scenes with procedurally generated farming/grinding areas is almost essential to the RPG genre.

[@AngryNerdBird]

The random level designs in Spelunky are great. It's rather elegant, honestly. The HD version, that is. The original freeware game was pretty good, but it got polished really nicely for release on steam/XBLA

[@OddlyIncredible]

Another thing to consider with procedural generation is the use of "prefabs," which are prefabricated content elements, that can be "dropped in" to add focal points, points of interest, etc. to an otherwise potentially drab and uneventful terrain. A great example of this is what's done in the "random gen" mode of _7 Days to Die_ - the latest alpha build has a number of prefabricated buildings that are dropped into the map to give additional places to visit/sight-see, loot sources, and encounters (as the prefabs have elevated enemy spawn settings). This basically combines the creative potential of crafting a small area of a level while retaining the otherwise quasi-random element of procedural generation.

[@robertkvicala4226]

The dungeons in dark cloud 2 (or dark chronicles for everyone out of the u.s.) work pretty well with its random generator. Is also just a great game all together. One of my top games.

[@isaacsnediker-morscheck3382]

One way I saw to make a story work with procedural generation was in The elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall where the story areas were created by hand while the rest of the world was generated using a procedural algorithm.

[@-kenik9629]

There's this really old game I remember, King of Chicago I think. It had procedurally generated story. And that was the entire game, in a way. The mechanics themselves were simple, and understandable. But working around the story, and high stakes of failure, was the real engagement of the game. This just felt right to add here, have a good one guys.

[@wilfredomartinez4788]

Congratulations on your 500,000 subscribers! (I'm one of them! :) )

[@Jza_Dragon]

Shamus Young's Procedural City is also a great tutorial on how to make procedural environments.

[@philipschorr5145]

i dont know why, but i like the idea of making an acheivment to go along with the "dead end with a higher rate of finding treasure idea" which is named something to convey the probability of not finding treasure there

[@JonnyLikesGames87]

I'm curious to see how No Man's Sky will handle procedural generation. It promises an infinite universe with infinite planets to explore. I wonder how much you will see before you start noticing repetition.

[@Aimela136]

JonnyLikesGames87 From what I've heard, it sounds the game already has a generated world that's server-side. Very likely, your spawn point will be randomized. Although, I wonder if the game will feature an offline mode with its own generation?

[@Ratchet2247]

Aimela The game will ship with only one seed and you can play both online and offline.

[@Alienrun]

Aimela wait wait wait wait wait a second! Am I correct when I say the game works like this: everyone is connected online and spawns in a huge open world, in a random location, and from there you can choose to do what you want and hopefully find someone else to interact with?

[@Ratchet2247]

Alienrun That is true facts. Your mind----> i.imgur.com/8pTSVjV.gif

[@quiotu]

JonnyLikesGames87 Again, I don't think NMS can be classified this way. It's a very unique game that way. In reality nothing is randomized, everything is based off of their formulas, it's just so vast that you'd think it was prodecurally generated. Every time you play the same planet in the same system would be at the same coordinates with the same layout.

[@DamyonsMusicHut]

Figured out that clickteam fusion is great for don't starve like generation. To be honest, once you build the system for one active, you can modify a few variables to make it fit.

[@nemesisurvivorleon]

THANK YOU. Now I have something to link to for a better and prettier explanation

[@robertsmall1456]

I saw a striking scorpion phoenix lord, Karandras, at 2:36. Why yes I will Subscribed lol.

[@risasirpa]

Welcome to the community :3

[@Profanity00]

I think the first four .hack// series did this well enough (starting with .hack//infection). Sure the maps were mostly similar, but it has a nice charm, and I became fond of particular levels.

[@becomeanolive1637]

Aztec, Castle Wolfenstein, Seven Cities of Gold, Dino Eggs, Impossible Mission, all Commodore 64 classics that I still play.

[@eumoria]

Crypt of the Necrodancer does a great job of avoiding broken scenarios. Out of all the time I played I've been stuck once unable to even die on purpose out of hundreds of hours of playing. There are places where they intentionally place those obstacles but they're clearly placed there and not just part of the random generation. Simple and awesome system.

[@TheDrunkenHetzer]

I think a game that does this really well is SCP containment breach, it doesn't have much of a story, but you can find articles on SCPs everywhere. It's also broken into three different areas, light containment (where you spawn in), heavy containment (which is the next area), and the entrance area (where a lot of the story takes place). With each section the game spawns ways to complete the game, SCP-079 in the heavy containment zones, higher level key cards to access more SCPs, etc.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Thus far, the best use that I have seen of procedurally generated levels was by Invisible Inc. It was so good, that those levels appeared to have been hand-crafted.

[@Isvoor]

2:34 Karandras, silently sneaking to videos he isn't otherwise related to. The Shadow Hunter, indeed.

[@TheInsomniaddict]

Anarchy Online: It's been using procedural generation in an MMO since 2001. Growing up with the game, I can say that it was one of the coolest parts of the game for me for the first 5 years or so (until I bought the expansions at least). More games need to start using systems like it.

[@ThePurpleCheeseMan]

This (in my opinion) is the reason why the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series is so great. It manages to randomly generate it's dungeons but still have interesting mechanics and gameplay ideas. Despite what was stated in the video, it actually has a pretty strong narrative too.

[@zoobMer]

procedural generation in bathesds games is really interesting. you could do an episode on that! call it "combining hand crafted and generated content," or something like that.

[@wildgoosespeeder]

I think that Transport Tycoon, Locomotion, and Transport Tycoon Mobile have a decent Procedural Generation system, especially Locomotion with those scenarios that randomly generate a world. You can even try to create your own scenarios with this tweak-able system.

[@The_Game_Guru]

I'd be interested to see an episode talking about prebuilt Engines. Like CryEngine, Unreal, Unity, etc. Maybe comparing them, and showing the benefits of each? Which seems to be the best for entry level designers? For more advanced designers? The advantage to using a premade Engine compared to building your own and how difficult it is? Stuff like that.

[@Wylie288]

Fenrir Shade the only advantage to using a pre-built engine is saving time or allows less experiance programmers to make things, best possible performance decreases with pre-made engines. (due to thier one-size-fits most game genres nature) However that doesnt mean making your own engine is always better you will need to be a good enough programmer to not have the same in-efficiencies as a pre-built engine does in order to really benefit.

[@masonthompsen248]

Spelunky is a combo of handcrafted and procedural generation. It stitches completely hand crafted chunks together randomly. Thus, it gives the best of both worlds.

[@SlowUnpacking]

Interesting, I think there is another kind of thing that can help us build random gaming experiences. The gamer. With things like choosing your team or even choosing how your side of the playing field looks. By doing this there are practivally infinite possibilities for each game and the player gets another game aspect.

[@SirWilliamKidney]

For a tip top game that manages to do many of the things mentioned well, Caves of Qud would be my pick. Interesting topic, cheerio!

[@Secundussy]

No randomly generated experience can truly create an infinite number of experiences. There are millions of ways a Rubix cube can be scrambled, but after the first several solves it becomes the same.

[@chair547]

the first 43quad

[@zecheat5703]

MILLIONS?! You think the rubix cube has only millions of combinations? The rubix cube LAUGHS at the concept of millions. The real number is more like 40000000000000000000 ways that a rubix cube can be messed up.

[@zuthalsoraniz6764]

It cannot truly create infinitely many experiences, but for most procedural generators, it is large enough that the finiteness doesn't matter.

[@jarnovanderzee2469]

That's why u use procedural generation instad of random generation, There's a difference

[@BranoneMCSG]

Obviously. That's why we get bored of playing games.

[@alextromba1459]

City of Heroes was great for Procedural Generated instance dungeons. One reason I don't mind instance dungeons so much. They were fun to play.

[@keiyakins]

And don't forget: for a lot of games, a little bit of procedural generation can go a long way. X-Com, for example, basically plopped down the UFO, the Skyranger, and then some random hand-constructed tiles around them. The most complicated rule in the original was the one that put a major street in the terror missions. Combine that with spawning the enemies at random spawn points marked in each tile by the builder, and you have enough unknowns for the player to never feel totally comfortable.

[@VanBurenOfficial]

It has literally infinite possibilities, it's (hopefully) a big part of the future of games and software.

[@1supacress]

Would love to see this done more on racing games. Fzero x has an unlockable cup that randomly generates the tracks. It's a lot of fun and hilarious to come across a tight and twisty track and watch the AI fly right off.

[@every116]

I think Pikmin 2 did this very well. Each floor of each cavern had a specific set of treasures and enemies in it, and a few large static pieces per room, but everything else was generated so well that it was hard to tell it was generated at all if you didnt revisit the dungeons at all.

[@Olors64]

0:18 Dat mug though

[@commenturthegreat2915]

1:15 I like how it's actually the same layouts repeating...

[@EMAngel2718]

I'd love to see a good one of these done in the pikmin series with caves like those in the second game.

[@Maeve_Rose]

procedural generation is why i keep playing Borderlands 2, and Borderlands 1

[@MrJackMTama]

I want that mug James had.

[@KoinMagus]

So this is how the quantum Matrix of our reality functions as well..intriguing. everything we make as a race seems to mirror nature. and yet we augment everything as if we desire to make it even better than all of the things are are already in existence and yet mirrors it as a point of reference. I love it!

[@bace1000]

I making a game where your team has to race their way through a randomly generated dungeon against another team in a clone of the dungeon. To create a well crafted experience but still allow for almost infinite replay-ability, I've settled on a system that'll allow me to do so. Basically, the computer will construct every dungeon out of large rooms, which have been already designed by a level designer (which'll probably end up being me). By only allowing an exit on each side of the room there are only 16 possible rooms needed to be created at a minimum for the generator to find a room which will fit into any space. The designer will be able to mark out in these rooms possible locations that enemies could spawn, or chests with loot in, and then the generator can tweak these to make sure that the room fits in with the experience so far. As the two teams are racing, we can make up for the slower team's lack of skill by putting more loot into the later generated rooms, which the quicker team might miss if they rushed through the floor and already left. Good video, but I think you could have touched on something like this in it though :)