slides - Nullpointer

Procedural Content
Generation
&
Game Dev
Tom Betts
Hi! I'm Tom, I work at:
Big Robot - a small Indie Studio
with a core 3 man team
Beginnings
Fallen City
A game for Channel4 - 2012
Jim Rossignol – Baron von Rossignol
James Carey – Earl of Design
Tom Betts – Duke of Numbers
Organisational
structure
Planning
& Design Docs
About Me:
Art school grad
Musician
Digital Artist
Self-taught-coder
Lecturer
Programming Cheater
How does a small team
make big(ish) games?
Procedural Content
Generation
Coder art
Code art
But Also!:
Detail & Compression
Replayability
Systems on show
Ownership
Novelty
Treasure Hunting
PCG was the subject of my
my
PHD & Games
Avseq
Musical puzzle-game
Avseq
9 X 16 grid sequencer
2.2300745198530623×10^43
22 tredecillion permutations
Simple generative music tracks
The sound of permutations
Permutation Racer
infinite proc-gen racer
Techniques
Noise point array
layered and filtered
wrapped as an isosurface
Marching cubes
Triplanar Shader
Threaded chunk generation
In Ruins
Proc gen 3d platformer
Techniques
2D dungeon generator, extended to 3D
Parametric control
Variations of local edge cases
Problem solving power-ups
Problem causing oubliettes
My Day Job!
Sir, You Are Being Hunted
(released last year)
Open world survival FPS
http://store.steampowered.com/app/242880/
Stats
9/10 steam
3/5 metacritic
4/10 IGN :)
Steamspy - Owners: 358,624 ± 15,128
The important stat: we made enough money to hire
another member and make another game!
Techniques
Voronoi-delauny dual graph
Fractal heightmap
Terrain processing
Biome regions with local generation logic
Loot table inventories
Emergent Behavioural AI
The Village Region
Define paths using dual-graph info
Line Roads with houses
Extend Lining to gardens
Add signs and street furniture
Name village & Save content
Regions as a library of generators
Currently ~15 region types
Simple – Beach to Village – Complex
aim for around 30 types
Regions have rarity, size, placement conditions
Bugs!
Dislocated terrain objects
Ravens frightened by their own wingflaps
Dogs forming wild pack
Villages on vertical cliffs
Villages underwater
Being able to shoot guns that are inside bags
NPCs AI
FSM priorities driven AI behaviour
Audio & Visual trigger systems
Cover system
Interfaction AI Combat
Dogs and owners
Bugs
Hunters investigating the sound of their own feet
Overly polite AI
Devoted 'Journey Home' dogs
Ravens stuck inside barns
The loudest fires
Underground boats
Now What?
Next project: 2-3yr dev time
Sci-fi open world FPS with territorial control
Team is now +1
Still no office, still remote work, no crunch so far!
Questions?
www.big-robot.com
www.nullpointer.co.uk
@tomnullpointer