Generating social details in games
September 18, 2016 12:55 PM   Subscribe

Mark Johnson is the developer of Ultima Ratio Regum (previously), a roguelike heavily slanted towards social interaction and rich procedurally-generated game-world background and history. He's recently finished a four-part look at procedural generation with Rock, Paper, Shotgun: posted by Harald74 (10 comments total) 59 users marked this as a favorite
 
Is the first link wonky for anyone else or is it just my iOS 10 iPad?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:03 PM on September 18, 2016


I get a PHP error on the top on my Win10 PC, but everything below it renders OK, it seems.
posted by Harald74 at 1:09 PM on September 18, 2016


Oh, this is going to be great. I'm really interested in URR and Johnson's devblog has always been interesting. This more structured work looks like a treat! Thanks!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2016


I have one deep problem with Rock Paper Shotgun, namely that twice at work I've said "Shotgun" instead of scissors while trying to play the original hand game. This led to both laughter and concerned stares.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:47 PM on September 18, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have been looking forward to URR for years now and I don't know of a game I've been more excited about in recent memory.
posted by radiosilents at 1:51 PM on September 18, 2016


The designer, Mark Johnson, often appears on the podcast Roguelike Radio, which is worth listening to if you are interested in roguelikes or game design. Here is the episode on Ultima Ratio Regum, and here's one about designing procedural narratives.

If I remember correctly, he has the game code in one huge python file! Its a very interesting, unique project.
posted by airish at 7:29 PM on September 18, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've been playing No Man's Sky a lot. To the point where I drew something like fan art of it. I will wax rhapsodic about how BORING it is. It's sort of a living painting, and I feel like I've seen most of what Johnson here describes as "1 elements" - the parts of the generation space designed to come up semi-rarely, rather than constantly. If there are any super-rare things then I may not really notice them beyond "oh hey it's a new model I don't think I've seen before, nice."

It's still relaxing and wonderful, mind you. But after a while it becomes a sort of pleasant sameness and tedium. A gorgeous sameness but a sameness nonetheless. And the repeated use of elements leads me to see every detail of them, over time. I may never pass the same spot twice but I'll pass many spots similar to it, and note weird little details.

I had a point I was going to make here. Something about how different games make you slow down to appreciate the craft they put into their art assets. Stretching it out forever via proc gen versus one small set of carefully crafted levels with combat designed to make you have to replay parts of the game before you get to the next chunk.
posted by egypturnash at 2:11 AM on September 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


If I remember correctly, he has the game code in one huge python file! Its a very interesting, unique project.

Yes, the episode on coding practices discusses the one huge python file. As a programmer it's infuriating because it's clearly working for him, but I still spent most of the episode screaming at my podcast player "No! That's not allowed! Because it's not!".

Haven't been that mad since I found out they didn't use source control while making Spelunky.
posted by Gary at 10:53 AM on September 19, 2016 [10 favorites]


Stretching it out forever via proc gen versus one small set of carefully crafted levels with combat designed to make you have to replay parts of the game before you get to the next chunk.

You're enjoyment of boring notwithstanding, I feel like this is a good example of how No Man's Sky Does It Wrong. That game really only uses procedural generation to push the walls of the sandbox back, but all you get is more sand. Sure, it's differently colored and textured sand, but it's just sand after all. It shouldn't be about stretching things forever.

By constrast, rogue-likes tend to use procgen in the service of killing the fuck out of you. Nethack (a favorite of mine even in 2016) randomly generates its levels, enemy/loot distribution, major plot level locations, etc so that every game requires you to deal with the situation at hand right from the get-go. There's no memorizing the first few levels and boss weak spots to get through them. It's "oh hey I just found a powerful tool right here on the first level I'm on easy street" or "oh man I have two rags and a fart and I have to fight my way at least 3 levels down to find anything else". My friends have this little joke that the biggest killer in nethack is hubris, followed closely by complacency. That's a rare thing in most games.

I'm still chewing on TFA, but it seems URR is using procgen for worldbuilding and lore because that's what the gameplay is focused on. Procgen should serve the gameplay, not expand the world for expansion's sake.
posted by quite unimportant at 3:54 PM on September 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't know where to start with the terrible coding practises described above. They sound like things I would do, that's how awful they are. Very glad that the respective programmers don't let that hold them back though!

I need to do a major catch-up on Roguelike Radio too, cheers for the reminder airish!
posted by comealongpole at 5:03 PM on September 19, 2016


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