What is Procedural Generation and How Can We Get Caleb to Not Hate it?

Flyover Indies Podcast: Game Making in Kansas City

Procedural generation is a term often cited by game fans and game critics in reference to a single thing: level generation. But procedural generation is so much more than just random generation of levels. In fact, you likely use some form of procedural generation in your own game development without even realizing it.

We discuss L Systems, level generation using procedural generation, random variation, Perlin noise, Wave Function Collapse, and other cool things that I (Caleb) definitely, for reals knew about before this episode…for real…honestly…do you believe me?

Also, this episode features a special appearance by Nash’s bird!

At the end of the episode, we play another round of Caleb’s Evil Trivia Challenge. The current score is tied at 2 points for Caleb and 2 points for the players. Who will take the lead? Listen to find out.

The games we mentioned are:

• Valheim
• Chess
• NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…

The game-making lessons we learned are:

• Music both directs and enhances the mood. Chill must support a chill atmosphere but also it provides feedback to the player that this is a game (or section of a game) that should allow for chilling out. Lack of enemies alone doesn’t signify a conflict-free scenario. (Valheim)
• Pawns as a terrain generator. Live environment manipulation disguised as offensive actions. (Chess)
• Character movement is the most important part of games in which moving a character is central to the experience. Duh, right? I’ll be refining movement in my next game for a very long time before moving on. This means the environment and puzzles I create will be anticipating the good movement, rather than possibly having been built with sub-par (ie, only suitable) movement in mind. (NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…)

Mentioned Resources:

• Spelunky (book): https://bossfightbooks.com/products/spelunky-by-derek-yu
• Tracer (game): https://espiongames.itch.io/tracer
• Sprouts (game): https://espiongames.itch.io/sprouts
• Transmutations (game): https://nashhigh.itch.io/transmutations

The mentioners of the aforementioned mentionables are:

• Charlotte Trible (@ctrble) - co-founder of Flyover Indies and game developer
• Nash High (@nash_high) - member of Flyover Indies, musician, and game developer
• Caleb J Ross (@calebjross / https://calebjross.com) - member of Flyover Indies and game developer

If you have any comments to make on this or any Flyover Indies Podcast episode, feel free to Tweet us @Flyoverindies or email us at [email protected]. We might just read your tweets or emails in a future episode.

Play some of our games here: https://itch.io/games/tag-flyover-indies

Credits

Intro and outro music by Nash (https://www.nashhigh.com)