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Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

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Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#41

Post by presidentender »

VonGuard wrote: post #35
DanAndersen wrote: post #11

The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…

Dwarf Fortress. Read about it. Play it. Marvel at it. http://www.bay12games.com There is nothing same-y about a game where you can't hit a bogeyman with a hammer because he's too fast, but you can kick his ass with cranberry leaves because they're lighter and let you hit faster. Or, how about the elephants roosting in trees? Or the vampirism that can take over a fortress? Of the possible were-versions of most creatur…

I love Dwarf Fortress, and there are some real treasures in the legends of many worlds. But even with all the possibilities, things still get redundant.

Yes, the elephants have taken to their emergent treenests, and that's beautiful. But that's a single bug (feature) that makes us say 'wow' once, after which we've seen it. The possibilities of were-spiders and were-alpacas and reanimated spleens and rains of dwarf blood are just more evidence of those sliders he mentioned. Urist likes tigermen for their stripes, and you can care about it, but Tosid likes cows for their mooing and Tovist prefers to consume purring maggot cheese and at a certain point we've seen it all.

That doesn't mean that Dwarf Fortress is flawed. It's easily the most involved story generator out there, and I'm really glad to live at a time when I get to read about it. But it's still not immune to the issues that the grandparent post raised.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#42

Post by McP »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #17

Another space game coming out this year that will heavily use procedural generation to re-create the milky way galaxy is Elite: Dangerous. I'm in the beta and it already looks great despite many features not yet being activated for the beta players.

You can't land on planets :(

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#43

Post by gavanwoolery »

VonGuard wrote: post #35
DanAndersen wrote: post #11

The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…

Dwarf Fortress. Read about it. Play it. Marvel at it. http://www.bay12games.com There is nothing same-y about a game where you can't hit a bogeyman with a hammer because he's too fast, but you can kick his ass with cranberry leaves because they're lighter and let you hit faster. Or, how about the elephants roosting in trees? Or the vampirism that can take over a fortress? Of the possible were-versions of most creatur…

Yes, Dwarf Fortress is a great example of what can be achieved. To provide some level of distinction, as in my other comment (which I will repeat here for convenience), there are at least two types of generation: generating the world layout and its rules, quests, plot devices, etc, and generating the actual visual content itself.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#44

Post by coldcode »

I was excited to read about it until I saw it's only for a console. I've wanted to build a unique "park" world with similar ideas for a long time, but never had the time or resources. I guess you have to start somewhere, but doing this for a single console (P4) is not what I would want to work with. Outerra is the engine that has taken real world geometry combined with procedural geometry in the direction I wanted to go and is built for PC/Mac when it's complete.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#45

Post by mladenkovacevic »

McP wrote: post #42
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #17

Another space game coming out this year that will heavily use procedural generation to re-create the milky way galaxy is Elite: Dangerous. I'm in the beta and it already looks great despite many features not yet being activated for the beta players.

You can't land on planets :(

This is coming out as an expansion after the initial release of the game. Or at least that's what the developers are promising if the initial launch goes well.

Indeed planetary landings (and walking within a space station) requires as much work, if not more than, the space-flight stuff, so it's understandable that they don't want to just tack it on.

Frontier and First Encounters games all had seamless planetary landings so the goal has always been to include them in Elite: Dangerous as well. Everything the developers have promised so far has been realized (although some things a little later than initially scheduled), so thus far it's a good bet that they are not overselling their capabilities.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#46

Post by towski »

VonGuard wrote: post #35
DanAndersen wrote: post #11

The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…

Dwarf Fortress. Read about it. Play it. Marvel at it. http://www.bay12games.com There is nothing same-y about a game where you can't hit a bogeyman with a hammer because he's too fast, but you can kick his ass with cranberry leaves because they're lighter and let you hit faster. Or, how about the elephants roosting in trees? Or the vampirism that can take over a fortress? Of the possible were-versions of most creatur…

Dwarf fortress is amazing, the algorithms it must use must be pretty interesting, it would be interesting to piece it out and open source it.

Dwarf fortress also benefits from completely simplified UI. Meaning it can go really deep without worrying about how the rocks are generated. Does magnetite look like pyrite?

It already looks like the scope of No Man's Land has gotten out of hand, maybe it will offer some of the joys of dwarf fortress, but not if it's purely visual.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#47

Post by swayvil »

DanAndersen wrote: post #11

The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…

Also there is an absence of beauty in the generative/algorithmic-art scene. Much neato, interesting and colorful - which equates to weak.

It's HARD to make beauty happen algorithmically. Nigh impossible. Frankenstein hard. Also, the intersection between people who code and people who possess a sharp aesthetic sense is minescule.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#48

Post by pokpokpok »

jmstout wrote: post #5
fisher-lebo wrote: post #2

I get the gist of how Minecraft is constructed: just a bunch of blocks with algorithms which hide certain blocks when they aren't in the player's view. Are there any articles about how an engine like this is built? It is an extreme level of procedural generation (apparently), but the graphics aren't blocky and as abstract, but rather pretty impressive. In a similar vein is Eskil Steenberg's Love [1], but this is on a…

Sounds like it's quite the artful balance between procedurally generated and manually curated content. A bit (but just a little) more information can be found here: http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2014/06/25/crafting-the-endless-...

I disagree, I think that it's the procedural generation that needs to be done artfully! Unfortunately the tools and experience to be creative in this medium are a few years out :)

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#49

Post by stevejohnson »

mbenjaminsmith wrote: post #22
thisjepisje wrote: post #18

Now what would be really interesting is to have some sort of rudimentary evolution in a game like this. Star systems, planet geology, flora, fauna, everything.

No, what would be interesting is everything that you said with the addition of relativistic-speed travel. Take round trips near (or over, depending on your reference) the speed of light and watch how things evolve.

I downvoted you because of the unnecessary one-upsmanship and trivialization of the grandparent. You might have your own idea, but you don't need to dump on his.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#50

Post by lmkg »

DanAndersen wrote: post #11

The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…

A totally different type of procedurally-generated content: The physical card game, Dominion.

It is a deck-building game, where players play cards to generate cash to buy cards that go into the deck that they are playing out of (which cycles endlessly). There are 6 boring and fundamental cards that are present in every game, and 10 'kingdom' cards which do interesting and clever things. The 10 kingdom cards that are present in any given game are randomly selected from a set of 25 (around 170 in the expansions), without constraint.

The variations are extreme. Some games have fast drawing and high power curves, some are slow slogs. Some games progress linearly, others build slowly and then explode, and some have stair-shaped power curves because there just aren't any cards at certain price-points. Some games have ways of attack other players. Some games have alternate victory conditions. Some games have multiple paths to victory, other are won by fine-grained control over normally-minor details. In short, the variation is immense and novel experiences have continued, even years after I first started playing.

Can we extrapolate from this? I think so. The two conclusions I would draw are: qualitative variation, and combinatorial traits. Differences in game worlds that are the most interesting may not fit into a slider, and binary or enumerated traits should be considered. Also, the interaction between random variables is what allows for a combinatorial explosion of situations. Stemming from that, it must be the case that multiple variables are meaningful.

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