Comments for Games By Angelina

Comment on The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui by Amit Patel

Amit Patel — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:03:34 +0000

Their talk at AIIDE was one of my favorites. I hadn’t imagined using a constraint solver in this way and it made me wonder how many other places such an approach would be useful.

Also, thanks for the Saturday Paper series!

Comment on The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui by Marginalia #1 « Electron Dance

Marginalia #1 « Electron Dance — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:16:42 +0000

[...] Populating levels procedurally [...]

Comment on Play Games, Help Science #1 – Georgia Tech by arstin

arstin — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:49:14 +0000

Wish i could play, no osx

Comment on Play Games, Help Science #1 – Georgia Tech by The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui | Games By Angelina

The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui | Games By Angelina — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:28:30 +0000

[...] on Twitter you’ll already know about Alex Zook’s experiment in adaptive games. If not, check this post I made earlier in the week for two links to some 2D shooter games. Playing them for ten minutes will help Alex’s [...]

Comment on Questions and Answer Sets by The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui | Games By Angelina

The Saturday Paper: Dungeon Feng Shui | Games By Angelina — Sat, 11 May 2013 13:13:20 +0000

[...] First, a little background on constraint solving. Most of the time in programming you’re asking the computer to do things for you quite specifically – for instance, you might set the player’s health to be currentHealth + 20 if they pick up a health potion. There’s no ambiguity there. Sometimes it’s easier to describe what your answer looks like instead of writing it explicitly though. So you might say that when a player opens a chest, they receive an item, and that item is worth less than 100 gold. That’s a constraint. You’re not saying exactly what the item is, but you’re specifying something you want to be true about it. Special constraint solvers can take rules like this and find you all the results that satisfy them (maybe you have a list of possible items and values in this case). I wrote a post on something related (but not quite the same) a while back. [...]

Comment on Play Games, Help Science #1 – Georgia Tech by zebalien

zebalien — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:21:06 +0000

To clarify, the surprisingly fast was for the first one, and the dying like no tomorrow for the second was because I couldn’t grasp the controls fast enough to get their nuances. I realize that wasn’t clear, and I’m sorry for that.

Comment on Play Games, Help Science #1 – Georgia Tech by zebalien

zebalien — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:15:39 +0000

A surprisingly fast shooter, though the screen-warping takes some getting used to. Maybe I’m not a good retro gamer, as this certainly captures nintendo-hard… until you figure out a tactic that works for you (mine was hold the W key and strafe your way into new enemies on a ribbon of death for the first one, and die like there’s no tomorrow for the second)

Comment on The Saturday Paper: Minecraft and Monet by Darren Grey

Darren Grey — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:11:38 +0000

Great article – I love how you take the somewhat dry academic paper and put it into much more accessible language. Regarding the personality of a level generator, have you read this article: http://www.gamesofgrey.com/blog/?p=236

I made a generator a while back for Toby the Trapper that changes just a couple of variables to give different styles of levels, with different associated gameplay challenges. My level builders in Unstoppable also are quite fun for this, as the level is built by around 60 agents moving around the level and changing wall/floor placement based on the current theme (which can change at any time). This is just very basic pottering about though – there’s a hell of a lot more depth one can go into. I’m still waiting for a game that embraces procedural content as an active part of its gameplay – levels shifting as you move to present different challenges based on how you play.

Looking forward to the next Saturday Paper

Comment on The Saturday Paper: Minecraft and Monet by The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

The Sunday Papers | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:30:53 +0000

[...] Michael Cook’s research blog is worth a read. [...]

Comment on The Saturday Paper: Minecraft and Monet by Mike

Mike — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:21:00 +0000

Interesting stuff! I like the question of doing this for roguelikes, because they do a good job already of conveying setting through tile placement (whereas platformers tend to rely more on the graphical tileset I think). I’m thinking of the cavelike levels versus the more regular mine/dungeon layout, etc.

The ecology thing is interesting too. Perhaps this is something that could be done post-generation of the maps, as with the constraint satisfaction stuff by Leif Fogel et al?