The Magic Behind Procedurally Generated History in My Indie Game | CultGame Devlog 8

[@augustday9483]

Dwarf Fortress is one of the most incredible examples of procedural generation in video gaming, and I'm always interested in any game which seeks to take inspiration from it and put a new spin on those ideas.

[@bucephalusstudios]

It truly is! Did you hear that the game got put into the museum of modern art in the USA? Really inspirational stuff! I appreciate your excitement for my project! I hope to make something worth your time.

[@dtomvan]

That *and* the caves of qud inspiration makes it very compelling to me also

[@inattentivedemiurge4227]

You get some gems in the Dwarf Fortress history at times. Look up the ballad of Cacame Awemedinade! It's friggin hilarious, has pathos, and is just overall awsome!

[@DeclanMBrennan]

Thanks. "Procedural History Generation" is an intriguing idea. An episode adjusting the probabilities for the next episode selection is like a single step Markov chain. Markov chains are a powerful mechanism for doing simulations. Adding additional steps to the chain could give your history more "memory" and make its twists and turns seem less sudden and random to the human reading it.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks for the comment! Some other comments here mentioned Markov chains too, and I feel I'm obligated to do some research on those to improve the system :)

[@PizzaMineKing]

Such a procedurally generated history might be interesting for a time travel game: Start the wheel with a low amount of "Seeding points", such as the dawn of mankind, natural disasters ect. Then make every event add new "child events" to the wheel. These child events can add child events of their own, for example foundation of a civilisation could add "birth of a great scientist" to the wheel, that could add "invention of by ", "Death of great scientist" and so on. During play, the player could change events such as preventing a war from happening, causing the game to re-generate all child events and all events involving characters and factions of the game as if the new event had happened but leaving independent events alone - this regeneration means every child event is deleted and for independent events, it is randomly chosen to be before or after that event. For example, if you change "war breaks out between x and y", a death of a person in these nations could be prevented, that person could develop a technology, that technology could spread ect. This will result in a new present. Some events like birth and death of a great person who didn't do anything could stay hidden from the player until the person does something more relevant... A lot of potential.

[@mihailmilev9909]

genius

[@musicjax]

One thing I like about Qud is how prewritten stuff is intentionally in the same sort of stilted style that its generation technique makes. Compare Resheph's story to generated sultans and read dialogue too. Gives the impression that the text in the world is kind of weird cuz it's a land foreign to us. Leveraging the stiltedness

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's a great way to put it! Leaning into the weirdness of proc gen is definitely the way to go imo - - With limited tech and labor, procedurally generated histories are going to come off at least a little silly, so understanding that and establishing it as intentional was a great choice of theirs.

[@dakotatyson9063]

@@bucephalusstudios cool idea I thought of was adding variations to response texts and adding changes to processing responses in the future. Specifically in thinking about the national parks example, where they said “who knew going outside was healthy for you?” Twice. Maybe a few variations within that, and even a few designed as responses, like “they thought it was overwhelming positive. Going outside was healthy after all!” More work, but makes it sound less list like and more like a fun historic retelling.

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@dakotatyson9063 That's a good observation! Yes, whenever there's a repetition of a chosen phrase like that, optimally it should be adjusted so we're either seeing something new or a phrase relevant to the specific entity's response to an event. I hope to devote more time to histories in the future and this is on the list! Thank you for your comment! It helps make CultGame better :)

[@dakotatyson9063]

@@bucephalusstudioswonderful! I love procedural history in games like this, because it helps the player imagine depth in the story and realize that story through their gameplay, while also not being a massive undertaking for the developer. Massive props to developing a system that presents this history in a more literary way, as that makes the player imagination part so much richer!

[@dakotatyson9063]

@@bucephalusstudios also, I love the large asci art pieces! The globe and other map implements is so beautiful in a monochrome art style. It makes me think of messing around in a text editor and finding art!

[@puppetbirds]

I am eight minutes into this video, and I’ve never seen gameplay of your game, but I am thoroughly interested in your game

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha! I'm glad to have you interested! Gameplay is in the oven right now :)

[@miroaja1951]

One super important factor in generating interesting narratives in history is deep causality and ripple effects (which DF achieves naturally with its simulation approach). Your roulette system is awesome, and I think a great starting point. Maybe you could imagine the probability distribution to be modified by some kind of "context matrix", similar to how LLMs generate text. This context would be modified throughout an entire history by all of its events, transforming the future of a world to be deeply and uniquely linked to its past :)

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's a great idea! I've noted this down for future R&D on CultGame''s proc gen history.

[@Mnnvint]

What I really dream about is incremental generation of history, the way Minecraft incrementally generates terrain as you explore it. History that doesn't need to be extrapolated until it actually becomes relevant. But that is very challenging... in minecraft, no matter from what direction you first move into a chunk, it will be generated the same way - this is true even if the structure spans over several chunks, like a nether fortress or a village. In our incrementally generated history, how do you ensure that "the uncle captured by orcs in 1445" story turns out the same, whether you talk to the nephew in the village first, or find the uncle in the orc dungeon first?

[@bucephalusstudios]

That is an interesting idea. I think history can be incrementally generated to a degree with the method discussed in the video, but it is probably not optimal for it. If you make any progress towards making something like this, I'd love to see it.

[@mihailmilev9909]

it's because in minecraft the rules for terrain generation generate smooth curves that do actually exist even before you explore them and they are "generated" to the player

[@AndreasCorelli-dw3mx]

Hey! I have been following CultGame's development on and off for a while, and you're doing great work :)) I'm 10 minutes into this video and I love how you explain procedural generation and world building concepts. Keep at it!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! I'm glad you're enjoying the video! I appreciate your patience with my development too! This is my first game and it's taking a while, but I have a feeling it will be special!

[@philiplinden]

+1000. Excellent take on a devlog and tutorial without claiming to have all the answers. Goals.

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@philiplinden That's high praise! Thank you very much, man. I hoped it would come across that way :)

[@joshuanorman2]

If the Feng Shui architecture guy saw your bed he would freak out. Nice video though

[@bucephalusstudios]

He probably would 😂

[@NoVIcE_Source]

i love the bright window to the left ( i mean unironically ) it's like the video blends with the site, idk its cool lol

[@bucephalusstudios]

An interesting observation! Haha, it's always messed with the lighting whenever I try to record myself, but I'm glad you like it. I've got some new lighting equipment for future videos, so I don't think it will be as much of a problem in the future :)

[@Haiddon]

ooh, that history generation system is really cool. I understand it probably wouldn't be useful to your game to do it, but it feels like as the system gets built out, you can add further backgrounds generated for the keywords. like you click on a faction name, or religion or character, and it generates a few episodes of history specifically for them. like "I want to learn more about this monarch's rule" and you click on it, and it gives a short history of notable events for them, and it could even be weighted towards interaction with factions that were around in that time period

[@bucephalusstudios]

Totally get what you mean! That would be super cool to click around and learn more about the characters and factions. I have your suggestion written down! I can't promise implementation due to limited time and resources (it's just little old me working on this) but I appreciate your contribution!

[@Haiddon]

@bucephalusstudios yeah unless it's super recent history that will directly affect what the player does, all I see it doing is increasing your workload exponentially for zero actual effect on the game. More just a fun thought experiment about what this world generation system could be capable of

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@Haiddon Nevertheless, it's still on the trello board! If it doesn't make it into 1.0, I'll have the CultGame community vote on what sorts of future free content updates they want in the game. Getting ideas from players and the community instead of the mandates of an executive is what we indie devs do best :)

[@the_multus]

I really liked the idea of your game and I'm definitely hanging on for some more! One suggestion I have, is using Markov-chain-style approach, instead of tweaking probabilities on the fly: not only does it allow for creation of a more controlled narrative, but it's also useful for checking out the most probable trajectories without any simulation inside the game. Vanilla approach prohibits interjections, but you could use it for determining general states (a country is at war with it's neighbour) and minute details (it's king has had a funny accident during a hunt) separately.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! I appreciate the suggestion! I will have to do some research on Markov chains and how I can get them to work with what I have at the moment. I'm totally open to it, but I have my attention currently directed on getting gameplay working right now.

[@PizzaMineKing]

A major problem with markov chains in this sort of tool is how many interconnected states a history has aswell as markov chains having no memory - as soon as an event changes two variables, such as a kingdom declaring war on another kingdom, you would need to connect the markov chains of these variables since one of these kingdoms making peace would cause the other one to make peace aswell, when other kingdoms get involved this gets worse.

[@himselfe]

Neat! A somewhat more fleshed out version of the approach taken in the original Elite game for planet descriptions.

[@trimux9624]

Looks really good man!, pretty excited to see more of CultGame!

[@bucephalusstudios]

I'm happy to hear that! Thanks so much. I'm looking forward to making CultGame a good experience for you :)

[@catdisc5304]

This reminds me a bit of how plague inc does their news ticker and event system

[@true_xander]

From the Church of Gadget Hackwrench I thank you for helping to spread our word.

[@bucephalusstudios]

No problem! It might be surprising to hear, but over a decade ago my youth pastor mentioned you guys during a sermon for some weird reason and I went home to read the story for myself XD

[@GunnarGoldfish]

Downloaded this video ahead of a transatlantic flight because it sounded interesting. Color me shocked when my own website shows up 6 minutes into the video! I love that you used the advanced editor to demonstrate weighting the episode options based on the various conditions you outlined. As for the content of the video itself, I really like this idea! I think it has a lot of potential for creating interesting back stories for worlds, factions, and characters! (also thank you for closing the ad before recording... so many people forget to do that and it looks so unprofessional)

[@bucephalusstudios]

Oh wow! Thanks for making the site! I really do get a lot of good use out of it. The video would not have been possible without it

[@chadoftoons]

Oh man 40 seconds in and the video is already great, i love this topic

[@brianwill5929]

I can't wait for this! As a real life cult survivor and a fan of ASCII games, this looks amazing. I will definitely be buying it when it comes out.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you for your support! We are really working hard to make this worth your time :)

[@safebox36]

For a moment I was wondering why Tom Felton was waving at me 😂 One technique that might be worth looking in to for the randomness is "wavefunction collapse".

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha I have gotten mistaken for Tom Felton on more than one occasion 😅 Thanks for the suggestion! I think I have heard of it, but I need to give it a good bit of studying.

[@charlesdilks3267]

​@@bucephalusstudios I've been interested in using WFC for narratives for a while now. It's traditional application is in tiled or texturing images, but I do think WFC type constraints and requirements would make for an excellent story generator. The main thing with this approach is you would need a _very large_ number of text templates for each permutation of a given scenario, and even more when you want variation per-template(ie "On , marched onto " and " and their invaded on ") Essentially though, with WFC you could set up certain episode structures to link into other ones to create a greater sense of continuity. If a faction appears, the next episode might involve that faction in some way. You could also use WFC to make up the episodes themselves; maybe you feed the generator a theme like "betrayal", and the generator strings together related microsituations. The generator would be making the madLib and filling it out at the same time, as it were. Pretty complicated stuff, but with the way you've been able to research and implement what you already have shows that you can do it. And for what it's worth, your Tracery-style system already has promise. Keep up the good work

[@nayzal]

not only is this generally really cool, but that ascii art is also rad as hell! great project man

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you so much! If you like the art, the artist is named littlebitspace!

[@dishcleaner2]

Great video. The terrain generation feature is pretty dope. I hosted an irl D&D session with my friends where one of the prominent NPC characters was brought to life with an uncensored LLM and Eleven Labs text to speech and it blew everyone away. I gave the LLM an entire biography on the character and his personality. He was rude, threatened my party and swore; it was great! It opened my eyes to the possibility of a Dwarf Fortess or Caves of Qud where the characters truly acted like people. I'm working on a cyberpunk MUD hooked up to an uncensored LLM now. You're way further in your project though. It would be cool if you added that functionality to your cultists. I would be down to collaborate if you're open to that.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you! That sounds like an awesome RPG experience! Getting NPCs to work like that is definitely going to make the future of DMing more interesting :) Your project sounds pretty cool! I'm considering LLMs as I further develop the game, but I'm a bit preoccupied with getting a vertical slice completed for a presentation I have in November. Nonetheless, I need to give the method a good look at! I'm always down for having a chat about game design or suggestions to CultGame. I'll be opening up my discord server for CultGame soon where we'll be able to do that with all others who may be interested.

[@shadamethyst1258]

This is super promising! One thing I really liked with the newer dwarf fortress versions were the introduction of plots: characters can make ties with one another, recruit thieves, spies, etc. With your system of mutating the event pool, it wouldn't be too hard to have events like "these two factions began working together, in harmony", or "their leaders secretely ruled together, planning attacks on each other's resistances", and events where they break bonds (which are only added by the bond introduction event), possibly increasing the likelihood of a war. I don't know what the rest of the game does (I stumbled onto this video, bur now I need to know moar), but it'd be cool to anger a faction when attacking another one, because they happened to have good ties through the world history.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you! Capturing some of those interactions with recurring characters and factions is goal! It will require a good amount of testing though. Glad to have you interested! Welcome to the channel!

[@igrb]

amazing stuff, super interesting to understand the approach

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! Glad you liked the video

[@xdsloth5199]

This is so cool! it's my first time seeing this game, I never expected to see a "retro" game to this extent, im looking forward to seeing some more devlogs! :]

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks much! I'm looking forward to making CultGame and awesome experience for you!

[@blackcitadelstudios]

This method is very interesting to add to my world events system. 👍

[@bucephalusstudios]

That will be awesome, June! I'm happy you could find some value in the video ☺️

[@the_brutal_king4314]

I haven't watched yet but I am absolutely glued... I had started a project for this before but considered it too complex due to histories requiring events that occur geographically.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Procedural generation is really hard to wrestle with all of the multitude of variables that can be involved -- I totally understand! I hope you can bring your project to life some day!

[@Deckardb25364]

Good to see this getting mentioned by others again!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Hi Deckard! Did you see this being shared again out in your circles? If so, that's pretty cool!

[@Deckardb25364]

@@bucephalusstudios Lmfao yes, very much so. Sorry for the late reply! Busy busy

[@Brainles5]

Game looks super interesting! Ive been pondering the concept of a game similar to crusader kings where you instead create a religion and then adapt or evolve from other religions that appear or splinter off. If your branch loses all followers you lose.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! Your game idea sounds interesting. If you have a video or any prototypes available I'd love to see it!

[@ceddyd]

As someone who is beginning research on the evolution of cultures and kingdoms throught history to build my own geopolitical strategy game, this video was a delight on my recommended. And a lot of what you're doing here is what I had envisioned for my own game. Really interesting!

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's awesome that you want to make a game like that! I'm happy you could find my video and have it bring value to you

[@humanmerelybeing1966]

Just read Gellner.

[@pawegorka8589]

When I was little, my parents couldn't afford a computer and I was already playing games thanks to my cousin, so I made my own board games with paper and pencil. I've never had problems creating a system that generates anything, but it turned out to be too complicated to calculate it on paper 😅

[@bucephalusstudios]

It's those memories that shape us into the people we are today! I've found that at least for CultGame, the constraints of only using text-based graphics have driven me towards more a creative end result. The history generation system ended up being a part of that :)

[@bazzel1059]

Inspiring!! I just wanna sit down and make it myself just to learn how to integrate it into my future stuff!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Awesome! Yes, I'd love to see other interpretations and remixes of this system!

[@lukelcs8934]

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the Righteous Religion, the Blue Diamond Sect, the Saber Religion, the Map Sect, the Soul Sect, and the Bad Ministry, and unite over our collective desires to LAUNCH INTO THE SUN!! :D Besides that, also wanted to say that you've easily earned one eager notified subscriber with this. I'm a dev myself (hobby for now) and while the games I make and am making are very different than yours, I absolutely love the vibes and ideas you've got going on here! It's a nice mix of serious and whimsical, while making light of some fairly dark concepts in the best way lol Love the explanation of everything in the video too, perfect mix of educational and entertaining! I'll definitely be keeping my eye on this, and hopefully won't procrastinate playing it too hard once it finally comes out ^.^

[@bucephalusstudios]

Only true ignitenment, er-uh, enlightenment can be found in the sun! 😂 Thanks so much! It means a lot, man :) I'm looking forward to making more videos you like and creating an awesome game for you! If you have any videos or prototypes of your games I'd love to see them!

[@lukelcs8934]

@@bucephalusstudios You're very welcome ^.^ And yeah, I do. I did manage to get 1 small game on Steam (or the first chapter anyways) called Clossure (with 2 s') as well as a rather large demo for my main project, GUIDANCE. Both RPG's with some meta stuff and lots of pixel art. I think my inspirations are rather obvious, but they're no less mine, and I love making them

[@kroysteamvr]

The only game I would play outside of virtual reality is Dwarf Fortress and whatever it is that you are making.

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's a huge compliment! Thanks so much! Working hard right now to make the game fun for you.

[@porky1118]

6:45 Sounds like it's going to be a top down approach. First you define some time periods and how they are laid out (peace, war, etc.). Then you probably have some algorithm to create history for each timeperiod or for each transitional period. And then these events will likely be refined and written out as real text.

[@kitvoxon1591]

First time hearing about your game and I have already been hooked

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's awesome! Thanks so much :) Working hard to make the game fun for you!

[@wildcard9671]

Love the idea! Will be getting the game when it releases.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! ♥️

[@BurninButter]

I f***ing love caves of qud

[@404PipesNotFound]

cant wait to see more this would be so cool to play and make worlds with this.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! Working hard every day to make an awesome game for you :)

[@bakutie]

i love your studio name

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you! If you know you know!

[@tomaszbuat2437]

Love the content! Keep it up and you’re going to blow up soon I’m sure.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! Looking forward to making an awesome community of people for this game :)

[@superhetoric]

super neat video; your game looks great. besides DF, the first thing I i thought of re: impressive procgen worldbuilding is the roguelike project Ultima Ratio Regum. there's a cool video here on KZbin talking about the extensive culture-building, you might be interested

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! Just yesterday someone sent me Ultima Ration Regum for the first time and I am enthralled by it! I feel intimidated by the game, but the dept is very alluring.

[@archilochus_core]

Thank you for sharing! Procedurally generating fantasy history sounds fun even without any games attached :) May I have a couple of suggestions? I noticed that the rulers/historical figures are kind of disconnected from each other, perhaps it would be cool to generate dynasties (which would terminate and change based on new factions/wars/cataclysms), where every member shares a last name. Also on characters, it may be beneficial to the flavor of your generated story to sometimes add descriptors/adjectives/weird titles to people, e.g. their physical qualities, character traits or nicknames for significant deeds. This, of course, would depend on how you're using these names and entities later in the code. Hopefully this comment helps you promote your channel and your game! Best of luck.

[@bucephalusstudios]

You're very welcome! Thank you for your comment. A system of dynasties is a good idea! I don't have it implemented in game yet due to my time budget being tight, but it's definitely a thought I've played around with! Character traits are being implemented! Actually just finished up refactoring how they work :) I appreciate your interest and suggestions! I hope that CultGame turns into something you love!

[@porky1118]

This video makes me want to write a generator like this, too. I think I will create some custom format which I used for interactive stories, so what is generated will include non-linear decisions, too.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Glad I could inspire you! I'd love to see any prototypes or working versions of the generator when you have it ready :)

[@porky1118]

@@bucephalusstudios The motivation was already gone again 😅 It might be pretty complicated. But I guess some kind of top down approach would make sense, too. For example starting with something like this: The main story has an intro, a main story with X failure paths, and then leads into Y endings. Then write different algorithms for the different parts. The intro might have a few different outcomes based on the decisions (similar to a starter pokemon). The main story would be mostly linear or maybe multiple linear paths with ways to switch paths. Maybe I should start at a lower level, with a simple conversation. I only specify the nuber of outcomes and maybe the number of intermediate nodes, and then it just generates a tree. And then each route will be filled with text?

[@compechdev]

This is super cool, can't wait to play the game!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks so much! I'm working hard to get it out to you guys :)

[@doltBmB]

One can not talk about procedurally generating histories without talking about Chris Crawford's Storytron

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you for mentioning Storytron! I just looked it up and I'm very fascinated by it! I will have to do some research and takes notes for sure.

[@Razumen]

Pretty cool, one addition could be adding in more named characters. Seems like it's more about organizations than people, when throughout history it's moreso individuals that make their names known.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks! That's planned for the full release where a greater variety of episodes will be drawn upon to be added to the history. Right now the 5 historical detail episodes that exist are, as you observed, mainly concerned with groups.

[@Ugarimpty]

How about adding things (Idols, monuments/places, items, relics) that factions, cults and anything else might create to a list of things allies might help protect, ennemies might wanna destroy or seize for themselves or even pretend allies might wanna frame others on when they are made, sounds like another thing to add to the list of things that makes sense while still being kinda random.

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's on the roadmap! Tiles will have features (places, monuments, buildings, etc) that players can interact with and create themselves. Relics are an entire system that may get their own video! Basically, they'll be items that give your cult a special bonus based on the item that you have declared a relic.

[@Ugarimpty]

@@bucephalusstudios Nice. I really like the Idea of Militaries and or Scientists raiding a religious cult 'cause their power slowly gets too real either in term of control of the people or control of occult esoteric means.

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@Ugarimpty Me too! That's an event/interaction we hope to have in game :)

[@chadoftoons]

I think the fun from Dwarf Fortress text history is that the events loosly depend on each other happening creating a semblance of responses from historical figures to the world around them. In the examples here there is no timeframe for the episodes given other then their linear top to bottom state but it does not really answer at the moment why these actions were taken based on previous episodes/leaders/factions (or if all else fails its an act of whimsy). Example an episode fires on a law passing but what is the historic context. Why did the historians think this was done? Maybe Martial Laws were put in place because of a fear of war or an Act of aggresion? This could lead to further traits for factions some of which are could just be context for the behaviour inherent to them. Like The evil empire of states being paranoid, warlike and isolationist which are not traits neccesairly to be inherited to the populace. ( Lest they all be paranoid) It might also be important to tie these traits with name generation (by having names have inherent traits associated to them) so that a Kleptocracy does not end up being very likely to implement universal basic income OR to have quips as to why something antithetical is happening ( The Kleptocratic goverment opts to enact UBI so that there is always something to steal). That last part is something that not even dwarf fortress does all the time ending up with the "Pillar of Light and Knowledge" beind led by "Urist Bloodthirsty Warprofiteer" and then the leader acting on their traits which create hard to follow bits in the worlds legacy. There is one paradox interactive game where its entirely generated empires fighting for power called stellaris set in a sci-fi setting. The traits for an empire there affect a weighting system to decide both on the outcomes of events with multiple choices (meaning every event needs to be weighted if it relates to the main empire traits) and the likelyhood of technology appearing which can set a warlike empire forward so that the AI feels confident in declaring war occasionaly when all that is happening is that their fleet power ends up higher for a moment. This lets players infer that the militarist faction is likely to be aggresive towards them if they cannot match their might. Its probably best to have everything get its own traits including even the world itself and then have less diverging paths on things like Ages as these could be figured out or atleast be weighted by traits that were decided beforehand. Just to see what episodes need to be written to exist by the traits that can theoretically appear for the objects being handled.

[@bucephalusstudios]

This is a very thoughtful commentary! Thanks so much fro your thoughts and suggestions! I'm taking notes so I can weigh these suggestions when I make improvements to the system :)

[@lev7509]

I see that you're effectively implementing a probabilistic state machine, where the current state of the machine decides the eligibility and probability of each option for the next state. For example, "end of war negotiated" is only applicable if there was a war, and the likelihood increases heuristically with some score of how war-weary the warring groups are by that point, and decreases with the likelihood of one group defeating the other. Also ideologies (tendency to negotiate peace with foes, massacre them, or enslave them), etc. Idea: Perhaps you could present the internal "wiring" of the story generator as a directed graph that connects different conditions and factors to the events they influence in the next "step"? This is much more flexible than merely choosing a fixed option for the next event in the history, because multiple things may happen close together as a result of a combination of circumstances. For example, escalating disagreement between a king and his ministers may both cause a minister to resign and the king to dismiss another. Instead of three separate episodes for "minister resigns", "king dismisses minister", and both at once, there is just the two possible events, the probability of which is boosted by a "government conflict" parameter, and possibly others. Though it seems that you do not aim for this level of granularity, which is also fine; it can creep people out when procedural worlds are too "real". I can also see the problem of more fine-grained simulations becoming log-like, instead of epic-like; this could be mitigated through transitions connecting events, emphasizing temporal offset ("A century had passed since X" / "Those that saw X in youth are now faced with Y" / "The day after") and, more importantly, details of circumstances. For my example above: "It had been a long year of *political turmoil* in *the Kingdom,* and *King Lloyd's* resolve to have his way on the *licensing and restrictions* of *magic users* has pushed *Sir John,* *former liberal Commissioner of Magic,* to resign." (possible blanks in bold) Good luck with what you're doing, and I hope to hear your thoughts!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Probabilistic state machine! That's what I need to search up to see how other people have done similar things. Thank you for putting a name to it! Your idea is interesting! Another commenter suggested something similar regarding Markov Chains. I really do like the idea of have episodes containing their own more-granular sub-episodes. I feel like it could really add an air of believability to CultGame's histories. I have this written down to consider for future development. Unfortunately, I have to move onto programming gameplay for now so that I can get an actual working game ready for a show in November, but I will come back to polishing histories later with this idea in mind. Thanks for your contribution and well wishes!

[@lev7509]

@@bucephalusstudios You're welcome! And yeah, gameplay is essential. Too many great ideas fell short on the gameplay. What I'm suggesting is a network-y approach rather than a Markov Chain (which is purely a probabilistic state machine). Markov Chains have very short scope, so if you use two episodes to choose the third, that'll prevent long-term conditions longer than three episodes. (a war lasting generations with many things in between) The network-y approach is to use parameters to choose the next "twist" and update the parameters. The "parameters" are things like the pressing concerns of factions and major NPCs, their locations, assets, etc. For example, two warring factions will have their economy and "desperation" adjusted accordingly if one captures an important city for the other, the losing faction will not be able to launch any operation or get any precious resources from the captured city, but they might have an increased likelihood of a desperate hero coming in to turn the tide, to not let their capital fall, for example. Factor in their ideologies, and you've got an epic narrative of a patriot saving their nation against invaders!

[@Leao_da_Montanha]

what a radiant presenter! nice video

[@bucephalusstudios]

Aw thanks!

[@RyanIsHoping]

Great video!!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks much!

[@SheppyHand]

Wondering if Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones was ever on the creator's radar. Was a very similar project that got scrapped more than a decade ago. I was their composer/sound designer.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Hi! During development, people have mentioned that game to me once or twice. I have briefly tried to find out about it, but most of the sites are taken down. It hasn't been a source of inspiration, but it seemed like a cool game concept. It's cool that you worked on the game!

[@SheppyHand]

@@bucephalusstudios I'm really glad you're doing something similar now! All the sites are gone, really the only thing that came of the game was world generation, some really basic roguelike style gameplay and my soundtrack. There were some forum games and stuff when hype was building, but i think that's all lost to the darkness now.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks for your support! I can understand why a project like this might be abandoned -- good procedural generation can take a while to get right. I'm solo and getting some drafts of proc gen up were tough! I'm committed to finishing though. No question, the game will be completed! If you have any ideas, inspiration, or recommendations based on that game's design, I'd love to hear it so that CultGame can serve to be a bit of a spiritual successor!

[@mikefulli]

Check out book called "Procedural Storytelling in Game Design". It contain bunch of essays about this topic.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Will do! Thanks for the tip!

[@humanmerelybeing1966]

Forgive me if I missed it, but are histories material? That is, do the material conditions influence the sociopolitical structures. For example if the terrain generation is high in resources that require intense labor, you might have a strong laboring class that either wields some degree of power or, more likely, leads to a strictly enforced hierarchy of exploitation. Conversely, you might see less rigid structures in areas that are more centers of trade, or where resources are abundant and easily obtained.

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's a great question! Material conditions do influence sociopolitical structures, yes. At the moment though, it is a pretty simple level of influence where the terrain and availability of resources can change the way populations are generated on a tile.

[@thespawner]

Check out Microscope RPG by Ben Robbins for some inspiration. It's a history building game with 3 different units of time used to explain different levels of detail.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks for the rec! I'll for sure check it out

[@FlorianRohrweck]

Thank you that was very interesting! \o/

[@bucephalusstudios]

Glad to hear you enjoyed the video, Florian!

[@captainkawaii666]

13:10 ah yes, the Evil States created national parks, where have I heard this one before

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha, quite evil of them indeed. For now, there's not a whole lot of data for the episodes to draw upon so we get a lot of national parks being created in these histories. Not a bad thing lol, it just has the potential to be more interesting than it currently is.

[@forestfilms7914]

If you love Betrayal you'd bloody love Oath if you havent played it already.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks for the rec! I'll look up oath and see what it's about.

[@wmpowell8]

I would improve this system by having different texts for when a historical event happens for the first time in the world's history vs. if it is the same as a previous event

[@bucephalusstudios]

That's a great idea!

[@wmpowell8]

@@bucephalusstudios Another idea is to provide just the main details of each event so that experienced players can see the history at a glance (if that's really necessary and the history would impact the gameplay, otherwise it could just be considered feature creep)

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@wmpowell8 Another good idea! I appreciate getting some more ideas about what needs to happen. At the moment there is a lot to create for version 1.0, so I can't promise implementation, but I've written this down on my Trello board :)

[@pyrus2814]

I don't think you should worry about "gameplay loop", "playable", and other bad memes like that. Create what you find interesting from first principles, then when it works it'll be fun through the arbitrary interfaces you come up with for interacting with that. The mere game isn't the important part; it's the ideas and the simulation underneath. Nobody talking about Dwarf Fortress cares about the specifics of the colony management "gameplay loop" -- in fact the game is interchangeable as evidenced by the total change in UI with Premium Edition and the existence of Adventure mode.

[@bucephalusstudios]

I totally understand what you mean! I am creating what I think is interesting, and the proc gen history here is definitely a part of those first principles inspired by Dwarf Fortress. I'm in a situation though where I'm obligated to have a gameplay prototype by November for a game convention I'm exhibiting at, so I do need to at least get something working for that. I will continue to polish up this history generation though :)

[@Jinxer128]

This video is going to blow up, mark my words. Cool idea for a game, I'm excited for it. Also make sure to look at or around the camera wail recording.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you very much! You're right. That is something I need to get better at. I just bought a lighting setup too so my face isn't as dark for future videos 😊

[@LunaRimu]

this has been one of the most creative videos i've seen lately!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you! That means a lot to me. Creative is what I'm going for 😊

[@Atticus_Moore]

Would be cool if the perks and factions and characters were all color coded. I don't know how other players would feel, but I know I would want to be able to easily pick out the unique bits from the history at a glance without needing to read it all unless if its purely for fun and there's no true mechanical purpose behind the history. An example would be if a player could view the perks, factions, and characters individually. I've never played dwarf fortress so I'm not familiar with how important these things will be or not be in your game. So maybe they don't need to be color coded at all

[@bucephalusstudios]

Great idea! This has been written to the road map. I imagine it's going to make reading the history more legible and faster for people who are interested in just learning about the types of entities that were generated as a result of the history.

[@canjiica]

One game that might give you ideas is Stellaris. Great game that has the potential to create really engaging stories

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks for the comment! I love Stellaris! I can't say I'm any good at it, but the customization and huge amount of content really does capture the imagination :)

[@BlindiRL]

I wana be a cult.

[@bucephalusstudios]

It's the dream 😊 Glad to have you interested!

[@Darkfault]

You look like a proper nerd, I'll follow.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha, sure am!

[@littlebitspace]

It's going to be epic! 💀

[@bucephalusstudios]

Let's goooo!

[@fantasywiz54]

"He was number 1!"

[@bucephalusstudios]

A very important thing to remember!

[@SpySappingMyKeyboard]

magic the noah fan I see

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha! Wondered when someone would notice that ☺️

[@SamGarcia]

And then the Fire nation attacked

[@bucephalusstudios]

Oh God! Haha! I need to make that possible 😆

[@thedarknightnicht]

Do you also take inspiration from mad lore like cultist simulator?

[@bucephalusstudios]

I really do like Cultist Simulator! I can't say that any of the mad lore from that game has specifically inspired anything in CultGame yet, but when I need to do some dialogue writing I'll probably take a look at how they established their tone and what their word choice looked like.

[@lorimartabin7992]

Based Cosmere fan

[@bucephalusstudios]

There's always another secret ;)

[@sensuku]

cool!

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thank you!

[@itsafish4600]

thats cool

[@bucephalusstudios]

Thanks much man!

[@Dubby_Stubby]

when will this game be available

[@bucephalusstudios]

I'm hoping to have a demo ready by the end of the year, and I hope to have a first version of the game ready by around next October. Subject to change based on development needs, as I'm just a solo dev who works with a couple of contractors. To quote the great linkara " It will be out when it's out!" 😂

[@nicks4727]

What engine are you using?

[@bucephalusstudios]

None actually 😅 It's just a C++ console program that uses ncurses to print to the screen.

[@veryexciteddog963]

this the kinda shit they're trying to reinvent with AI but clearly this method doesn't need adjustment

[@bucephalusstudios]

I've had thoughts about using AI to make procedurally generated histories, but I feel like I don't quite understand it well enough to control it exactly in the way that I would need to. I'd be interested to see any AI based solutions!

[@bakersbread104]

your bed position is very strange

[@bucephalusstudios]

It really is! I changed it up one day just to try something new, but I may want to consider shuffling around all the furniture in my room.

[@jjones503]

@bucephalusstudios I respect a man who lives outside the box. As someone who comes from limited space, you do what you can to make the best of it. It's unfortunate that I never considered diagonal as an option, as I can assure you this would have made a difference for me at one point, and would have been the superior choice. Keep grinding brother.

[@AtomSymbol]

1980-ties algorithms/technology

[@Deckardb25364]

The Warsim vibes.

[@bucephalusstudios]

Gotta love Warsim! I'm actually friends with the developer.

[@Deckardb25364]

@@bucephalusstudios Dude, I absolutely wish I could say likewise lmao. That man, Tarn and Zach, Artur Smiarowski, Jason Grinblat and Brian Bucklew. There's some crazy damn beautiful people in this field. You're pretty much doing what i've been learning to code in order to achieve, but my ADHD makes it so incredibly hard and my absolute 0 skill in any mathematics, it's grueling. I genuinely want to make something like this so bad, bought Warsim the second I learned about it and have bought a good few gift copies for nearly everyone I know. You guys are an absolutely inspiration for a generation.

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@Deckardb25364 Those guys are awesome! I'd love the chance to get to become friends with more of them :) Getting into programming is hard! No doubt about it. From my experience, some people just have minds that are more oriented towards it. I've met some incredibly smart people in my life who get intimidated by programming and math. It's awesome that you have a dream to make a game like this! Part of my channel's mission is to provide education that doesn't come off as pretentious or initimidating to people who want to make games. I find that quite a bit of the concepts involved in programming and procedural generation can be explained in a much more down-to-earth and achievable way than they have been. I hope this video and my future videos can help you to make your dream game. That really does mean a lot, Deckard. Thank you very much!

[@Deckardb25364]

@@bucephalusstudios Thank you, greatly. Give it some time, you'll be talking to those beautiful minds just as fast as you yourself have become one of them in such a short span. It's incredible. Do you have a discord server? I'm assuming if I just take a second to peek at the description further it'll show an answer, and I will once I hit send, but I'll leave this part in just in case you don't. I suggest you DO, heavily.

[@bucephalusstudios]

@@Deckardb25364 I feel honored to have you say that! I do, but I don't have it prepared for the public yet. I will probably make a video/community post here on youtube announcing the opening of the server to everyone in good time. Probably in the next couple months.

[@hexxt_]

just ask chat gpt trollface.png

[@bucephalusstudios]

Haha, for some trivial coding problems, chatgpt has been a godsend. There's still a long way for it to go to be a consistently good source of information, but I'm counting on it getting better :)