Monday, January 10, 2011

Games that feature procedural generation of content?

I'm looking for games that include procedurally generated content as a major feature; like all levels are generated, enemies, weapons, etc.

One per answer please, and pics if you got em!


Games that have been mentioned already:

From gaming RCIX
  • Dwarf Fortress.
    The entire world, including all the lore and civilizations, is randomly generated when you start a brand new game.

    alt text alt text

    dierre : and you can play new game on your last map so you can see your past fortress.
    antony.trupe : we really could get a prettier screen-shot.
    Mana : This one look better?
    antony.trupe : better, yes, but a tileset mod would be better, for example http://i.imgur.com/2Aj0V.png from http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=57557.0
    From Mana
  • Spelunky it's a platformer made as a roguelike. Available free for the PC and an XBLA port is in the works.

    alt text

    NPC : A perfect game.
    From HenryHey
  • Minecraft procedurally generates infinite three-dimensional worlds (awesome video), though I think the developer might still be working out some kinks with rendering and savegames. The client is in Java.

    screenshot of infinite map screenshot of procedurally generated arch

    From jshu
  • Love by Eskil Steenberg is another procedurally-generated game; not only is the landscape procedurally generated, but the animations and settlements are as well.

    Check out the debut trailer for Love, a review of Love, or player-made Love videos on YouTube to get an idea of what it really looks like, the screenshots look a little weird thanks to whatever crazy shaders the developer is using.

    power line ai generated base

    Tobias Kienzler : that looks awesome!
    From jshu
  • Borderlands procedurally generates the weapons and other items in the game.

    From kevint
  • .kkrieger is almost entirely procedurally generated. Made by the demoscene group Farbrausch in 2004, it only weights 96Kb! .kkrieger

    NPC : Does it have much of a game, though? I remember it being a very simple demo, can't even remember if interactive or not...
    HenryHey : It is interactive, but I think it only has one level.
    Arda Xi : Who cares, it's procedurally generated. Restart it and you have a new level.
    Martin : Is it different every time? I was under the impression .kkrieger was procedurally generated but the same every time.
    MGOwen : Yes, I believe the textures etc are procedurally generated (hence the tiny size) but I don't know if the map is.
    From HenryHey
  • Torchlight uses generated weapons, items and maps.

    alt text

    From Wikipedia:

    The game generates each level of the dungeon by assembling modular "chunks" of the game environment. Each chunk is designed by hand and may be composed of multiple rooms. They can contain scripted events and interactive objects such as levers that open secret doors or cause bridges to move. This approach to level generation is intended to create dungeons with more purposeful design, instead of environments that simply look like "crossword puzzles that have been extruded upwards."

    The last sentence is most likely directed at the Diablo games.

    From Gnoupi
  • The Diablo series uses generated weapons, items and maps.

    alt text

    Diablo 3 will add to this generated quests and "events" occurring in the maps.

    From Gnoupi
  • The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall has a mostly procedurally generated game world.

    Macha : Wasn't that generated during development, not when you play, though?
    NPC : The dungeons are generated (which caused some of them to be impassable).
  • Subversion. The next title from Introversion uses procedurally generated cities.

    A procedurally generated city.

    HenryHey : 2 minutes city generation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zluTvROHXA
  • Spore has a lot of content procedurally generated (creature meshes & animations, vehicles and planets at least)

    C. Ross : It was actually more community generated (taking content from other people's games). And it was very disappointing to me at least.
    Grant Peters : @C. Ross - Most of the content is still procedurally generated, just because it has input from the players it doesn't remove this fact (otherwise you wouldn't be able to say half the games here are procedurally generated, such as ".kkrieger" where all the data is hand crafted to give the meshes, animation and sound)
  • Worms uses procedurally generated levels. In older versions it would show you the value used to seed the generator so you could replay the same level by reseeding the generator.

    Worms

    From xan
  • Frozen Synapse Uses procedurally generated levels to infinite variation to the game.

    Frozen Synapse

    Neil Aitken : Good find, I have the beta and totally forgot that it's procedural.
    Scoregraphic : This game looks interesting...
    From xan
  • One of the first games to use this was probably Elite, first published on 1984. The galaxies are generated procedurally, even though the number of galaxies was limited to 8.

    The Elite universe contains eight galaxies, each galaxy containing 256 planets to explore. Due to the limited capabilities of 8-bit computers, these worlds are procedurally generated. A single seed number is run through a fixed algorithm the appropriate number of times and creates a sequence of numbers determining each planet's complete composition (position in the galaxy, prices of commodities, and even name and local details — text strings are chosen numerically from a lookup table and assembled to produce unique descriptions for each planet). This means that no extra memory is needed to store the characteristics of each planet, yet each is unique and has fixed properties. Each galaxy is also procedurally generated from the first.

    There is even the source code available for procedural generation part (trading engine).

    Seamus : Surely nethack predates elite...
    Juha Syrjälä : @Seamus: Nope, Nethack was released [July 1987](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nethack). However Rogue is earlier, having been released on [1980](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike).
  • Soon to be released Infinity is going to feature a procedurally generated universe. Don't forget about roguelikes or even simpler games like labyrinths.

    From badp
  • Oblivion procedurally generates terrain and dungeons.

    NPC : From that article only the dreaded monster-autoleveling roughly fits the "procedural generated" definition, and that was the most disliked feature of the game.
  • the Master of Orion series had procedurally generated star maps.

    From McKay
  • Star Trek Online has a little procedural content.

    From McKay
  • Nethack procedurally generates dungeons.

    Progress Quest also features a lot of procedural generation of stuff (and not much else...)

    From Seamus
  • Audiosurf

    alt text

    Its tracks are generated from the music you want

    From Matias
  • Eufloria also generates the levels procedurally. Amazingly addictive!

    Eufloria

  • Anarchy Online uses Procedural dungeons and Missions

    From Scott
  • Fuel, the arcade racer, features a giant procedurally generated world. Shamus Young did an interesting analysis of it, more in The Escapist and his blog.

    GnomeSlice : +1 for the Fuel mention, but it's not really an arcade racer, more of an exploration style driving game.
    From Nelson

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