Games with impressive procedurally generated content

[toro]

Kenshi

 

[JarlFrank]

None of them, procedural content is always shit compared to hand-made levels, no exceptions.

 

[darkpatriot]

Starfield

I am happy to see Bethesda moving further in the Procedural Generation path and wish they had never strayed from it after Daggerfall.

But Starfield was not a particularly impressive offering in that regard. I hope they go further with it, and implement it better, in future games.

 

[Just Locus]

if you think about it, the real world is created using procedural generation.

 

[janior]

impressive? a lot of them
good? none of them

 

[Radiane]

Noita also is generally well received

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

the absolute best is Dwarf Fortress, they pretty much spent their whole life making it

besides Dwarf Fortress, this:

Ultima Ratio Regum ("the last argument of kings") is a game designed to combine the massive and varied world of games like Dwarf Fortress or Europa Universalis with the cryptic puzzle-solving and clue following of games like The Outer Wilds and La-Mulana. Set approximately around the Scientific Revolution, the player is tasked with discovering a conspiracy via identifying procedurally-generated clues hidden throughout the world's cultures, religions and societies; the game features extensive procedural generation of everything from tombs and religious altars to (in the future) paintings and sculptures, any or all of which may contain the clues required in a given playthrough. The latest major releases, 0.9 and 0.10, introduce currencies, procedurally-generated items, trade, and ship-board travel. 1.0 is coming soon - watch this space!

https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/

 

[JarlFrank]

I am happy to see Bethesda moving further in the Procedural Generation path and wish they had never strayed from it after Daggerfall.

That's an interesting way of saying "I am a retarded faggot."

Hand-crafted is the way to go, almost every space exploration game uses proc gen, therefore they all feel the same. Played one of them, played all of them. Proc gen means there is no unique content to set them apart.

 

[darkpatriot]

I am happy to see Bethesda moving further in the Procedural Generation path and wish they had never strayed from it after Daggerfall.

That's an interesting way of saying "I am a retarded faggot."

Hand-crafted is the way to go, almost every space exploration game uses proc gen, therefore they all feel the same. Played one of them, played all of them. Proc gen means there is no unique content to set them apart.

Only if it is unambitious procedural content. Given what we can now see AI doing in terms of content generation, I think we are going to see a lot more ambitious procedural content as game developers start finding ways to harness that.

 

[Just Locus]

Hand-crafted is the way to go, almost every space exploration game uses proc gen, therefore they all feel the same. Played one of them, played all of them. Proc gen means there is no unique content to set them apart.

Hand-made content often reflects the creativity, attention to detail, and expertise of the human creators (nonexistent nowadays but that's beside the point). Which is unable to be replicated by an algorithm. Creators have full control over hand-made content, allowing them to convey specific messages, themes, or aesthetics with precision. which is ALSO unable to be done by an algorithm.

Part of the reason I prefer games that take place in space is to have a couple of hand-crafted, well-thought-out planets, rather than a thousand boring, empty planets that are monotonous to explore. Solid game mechanics can only grab your attention for so long.

 

[JarlFrank]

Precisely. Hand-made content, even badly made, reflects some sort of idea from the creator. Sometimes even badly made handcrafted areas contain interesting bits, and of course the well-made ones are absolute blasts to go through and can elevate even a game with shoddy mechanics.

Thief, Quake, Duke 3D, Morrowind, Fallout, Might & Magic, all these games live off their hand-made content: level design, quest design, encounter design, puzzle design. It's impossible to recreate the qualities of these games with procedural content. It has been tried, but always failed. Entire genres depend on hand-crafted content: FPS, RPG, metroidvania, puzzle, point & click adventure, etc etc.

The only games that can pull of proc gen are games that rely entirely on interacting systems. Strategy games work best here, because in a strategy game you and the AI work under the same (or similar) rulesets and the gameworld keeps changing due to everyone's actions. Paradox grand strategy games, Total War, Civilization, etc. Of course, a lot of these games don't even have procedural generation but are set on fixed maps of the real world: Paradox and Total War titles make you select a historical nation of your choice, then throw you into a certain historical period. After the start date, anything can happen based on AI behaviors. It's not really procedural content, it's the consequences of systems and actors interacting with each other. No random generation algorithm is running in the background creating new levels or anything.

Essentially, those games are PvP with the other players played by AI. It's fun because multiple entities interact with each other according to a complex ruleset, leading to interesting results.

But procedural generation in PvE games, where you play a single character and the world around you is essentially static, just leads to low quality content compared to what you can get from hand-crafted level and quest design.
Any single player genre that doesn't have independent AI actors benefits from hand-crafted content, and is not suited for the procedural.

 

[Just Locus]

Only if it is unambitious procedural content.

Procedural content is, by its very nature, ambitious.

Procedural content in video games refers to content that is generated algorithmically rather than manually created by game developers. This content can include various elements of a game world, such as terrain, level design, textures, objects, characters, quests, and more. Tell this to a programmer in the 90s and they'll think you're insane - Not to mention that ambition doesn't translate well to quality, it CAN contribute to quality, but it does not guarantee it. If you wanna develop it as a proof of concept type of game, Sure, go ahead I'm all for experiments, but do not pretend it's a sign of quality or potential when not even AAA companies with more money than god at this point, cannot tap into that "potential".

 

[JarlFrank]

I played so many traditional roguelikes, at this point I can't even tell the difference between them anymore.
Sure, they may have different mechanics, but the levels play out exactly the same every time. Procedural level generation algorithms are relatively similar, so the output is always samey.
I played Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Dungeonmans, Tales of Maj'Eyal, Zorbus, Dawn of the Mexica, Golden Krone Hotel...

All of these roguelikes have their own mechanics and should, theoretically, feel different.
But thanks to the similar level generation algorithms, they don't. It all blurs together in my mind as "generic roguelike content". If you've played one roguelike, you've played them all.

Meanwhile I can tell you the differences between Might and Magic 6, 7, and 8 levels despite them being such similar games mechanically (practically the same game, even). They have actual hand-made level design, leading to some memorable dungeons and encounters.

You will never get that in a proc gen game.

 

[Vic]

All of these roguelikes have their own mechanics and should, theoretically, feel different.
But thanks to the similar level generation algorithms, they don't. It all blurs together in my mind as "generic roguelike content". If you've played one roguelike, you've played them all.

have you tried Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

 

[JarlFrank]

Yes. It's mechanically different enough from other roguelikes to be interesting, but the strength of it are all the systemic interactions it offers, not the procedural level generation.

It would be just as good (if not better) with a hand-designed world like Project Zomboid.

 

[Nutmeg]

DoomRL has "special levels" which are 90% handcrafted (I believe enemies, props, and maybe even some crevices and the like can be randomly placed), and also completely random levels. It's a good balance. The random levels are important because you can't know them ahead of time, so they provide a true recon and exploration aspect to the game, but they don't get monotonous as they're not the only kind of content.

Really good balance. Truly the best Rogue-like.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Personally i'm not a fan of DoomRL's or any Roguelike's handcrafted levels because they feel puzzle like, often involving cheap ways to kill you, that you certainly going to die the first and maybe second, third and so on time until you memorize the correct way to do it or find the right strategy through trial and error, in DoomRL for example the last stage of episode one there's a ambush-trap room right before the barons, that spawn shit tons of enemies around you once you walk in(and you have to do it or i haven't found how to avoid it yet), i die a lot in there, and there's only a few strategies i know that work. If it was a random room, like whatever, just redo it, but since it's mandatory to do it to win, you have to go through the trial and error process(or read wiki).

There are other puzzle like handcrafted levels like that, for example later on there's one that auto scrolls and if you don't know the correct sequence to find the exit you going to die, other with shit tons of pain elementals and so on.. so i started to skip the optional ones in my runs because i know i'm 100% going to die in my first try and lose a good run. If it was everything random i would not have to do that.

What i want in roguelikes is challenge from small decisions over resource management, risks and tactical combat that build up my chances to win, the last thing i want is some Battletoads-like trial and error level design in these permament death games(and i don't want to read wiki spoilers to have a chance to win either)

Finally the other part that i dislike about them is that they're just repetitive, i got sick of doing DoomRL Arena and Military Base over and over again, they offer good rewards so you're encouraged to do it even if you're sick of it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Roguelikes are repetitive by nature, once you've grown accustomed to the level generation algorithm they will feel the same all the time.

 

[Just Locus]

Does the original Rogue game even hold up today?

 

[tritosine2k]

Some cut down, distance limited path tracing runs at 40fps at fullhd. Then you extrapolate this to simulate material aging over 20 sqmile or sqkm instead of close vicinity of player and not over frames but years.

 

[Falksi]

The only one which I can think of which I half enjoyed was Toe Jam and Earl, and that's coz it was just something to mess about on with mates. It wasn't a particularly good game.

 

[Ash]

Really good balance.

the best Proc gen truly is truly a balance: finely handcrafted but shuffled in various configurations. I used to be adamantly against the concept because I played so many games where it was implemented so poorly, the generated level design was total shit and no depth or soul, and I still definitely don't want it in all games and generally prefer 100% handcrafted, but I think more recent games have shown that smart and selective application of it can really make a difference, Like Darkwood and the Spelunky games. Note: both are 2D. That's probably why. 3D would be significantly more difficult to generate high quality proc gen for. I've played some recent proc gen 3D games I thought had good level design, like Everspace or One More Dungeon 2 for instance, but not great.

Anyway, games that combine proc gen and finely hand-crafted "modules" is probably not true proc gen, and that's why it is good. IDK how to define it but it is surely a spectrum.