Experiments with Procedural Generation, Part 1

Dungeon Generator

Tools: LUA, Love2D, ZeroBrane Studio

Since Itch.io is having a procedural game jam in November which I'd like to participate in, I decided it might be a good idea to use 1GAM to get some practice with procedural generation.

My October 1GAM project is a top-down rogue-lite shooter that takes place in procedurally generated dungeons where you fight procedurally generated enemies. The plan is to have a virtually unlimited amount of procedurally generated weapons and gear to collect and choose from. Because the end of the month is nearing I am likely only going to get a simplified version of this done by the end, but I am definitely going to continue working on this game past the end of the month.

The dungeon generation system is pretty powerful and flexible. I can completely change the look and feel of the dungeons being generated just by tweaking a few small settings.

Here are some dungeons generated using settings designed to create disorganized, cave-like dungeons with lots of open spaces:

In those screenshots, green and red tiles mark the entrance and exit of a level, blue marks a dead end which is a place where chests or other nice things can spawn, and cyan blocks mark big open spaces where we can potentially spawn a lot of enemies at once to create some big, interesting battles.

And here are some dungeons generated using settings designed to make more square, man-made looking dungeons with many straight hallways and corners, and few open spaces:

As you can see, just by having a few different predetermined settings to select from I can potentially generate a huge variety of levels that all feel and play completely differently.

1GAM (September 2014)

Tools: LUA, Love2D Framework, ZeroBrane Studio (an awesome open-source LUA IDE)

The title screen, with 3 AI fighting each other in the background.

My 1GAM project for September was a simplistic real-time planetary-conquest strategy game, similar to Galcon or Eufloria. Players fight for control of planets which produce ships, which you then use to conquer more planets. The game keeps going until one side eradicates all opposition. It's a genre that has been done plenty of times before, but it still isn't over-saturated. And it's a genre that I particularly enjoy, for some reason.

Fights are happening on multiple planets simultaneously.

What excited me most about this project, apart from making it in LUA, was the idea of writing an AI for the game. Though the behavior of the AI I planed was simple, it turned out well. It is both challenging and intelligent-feeling, and I could watch the AI fight itself all day long.

If you want to check the game out you can download it on GameJolt.

Next Month

Itch.io is having a procedural game jam in November, so as practice I am putting a lot of procedural generation into my project for October. I already have my procedural dungeon generator working, and I also made my own implementation of Conway's Game of Life to practice Cellular Automata. I will be doing a blog post on procedural generation to cover the two projects later.

1GAM (August 2014)

Tools: C#, Unity game engine, Unity Editor

This was my first month doing the 1GAM challenge so I wasn't worried about making anything all that impressive. I was experimenting with the Unity engine's 2D physics features and figured I would turn it into a Flappy-Bird-style click-to-dodge game.

You are a triangle-ship flying through an asteroid field. Click to the left or right of the ship to dodge. Over time your ship speeds up and the asteroids get larger.

The asteroids start off small.

As time goes on your ship speeds up and the asteroids get larger.

When your ship explodes the pilot is ejected and the camera

follows him until you start over. 

 Play the game here.

I was planning on polishing the game up a bit more before the end of the month but then I wound up participating in Ludum Dare 30, and I've been working on the game I started during the competition ever since. 

Next Month

September's 1GAM game will be in LUA, using the Love2D engine. I'm still not quite sure what kind of game I will be making, but I think it will likely be a Galcon-style game where you fight over territories that auto-generate units over time, which you then use to capture other territories. I'll probably make a post with some screenshots once I have some progress to report.