The document discusses the lessons learned from using procedural content generation (PCG) in game development, specifically in the context of the game 'Easy Money?'. It highlights the importance of integrating PCG into the design process, emphasizing the need for collaboration among artists, designers, and developers while outlining techniques for asset creation, maze generation, and player modeling. Key takeaways include breaking levels into modular components, establishing a PCG system early, and being mindful of the balance between procedural and static content.

1. Procedural Processes
Lessons Learnt From Automated
Content Generation in “Easy Money”?
Luke Dicken and Heather Decker-Davis
@LukeD
@HeatherMDecker

2. About Robot Overlord
Games

3. About "Easy Money?"

4. Easy Money?
Demo

5. Why Generate Procedurally?
• Players expect lots of content in games
• Players memorize static levels
• Disinterested in replaying the same content
• PCG can keep it fresh. Imagine Temple
Run with a fixed level layout
• Easier to store an algorithm than a set of
assets

6. Procedural Generation in EM
• An ample set of levels was needed, and
PCG could help us achieve this
• Mazes are generated semi-randomly
• Items are deployed semi-randomly
• Today, we want to talk about how
everything comes together and how PCG
impacted our workflow and results

7. Developing Procedurally
• Setting up conditions for a potential range
of envisioned player experiences, rather
than crafting highly specific settings
• Static vs. Procedural levels
• Developers used to working strictly with
static content models may need to shift
their mindset

8. Designing Procedurally
• Designing interactions for a space that
does not yet exist
• Spatial challenges and the realm of
possible results
• Be aware of potential unplayable situations
• Prototype your mechanics first
• System-oriented or formulaic progression
• as always, refine with testing
• Choose variables that follow your design
goals and uphold a sense of fairness

9. Designing Procedurally
• Test extremes of variables to find your
target start and final level values
• Then build a formula to fill in between point
A and point B
• Linear equations are a good starting point
• Simple linear progression can be tweaked
• For a distinct endgame feel, for example

10. Asset Creation
• Involve artists early so they can experiment
with the specific PCG system
• Artists must think modularly and consider
possible ways an asset may be positioned
• Several possible approaches
• theme packages
• color shifting
• procedural texture

11. Asset Creation
• The art style in Easy Money? embraced the
level structure while following the desired
aesthetic
• Testing and prototyping art was helped in
nailing down specifics methodology for
asset construction

12. Prototyping
• Once general level characteristics were
defined, 2D tiles were created
• This allowed us to refine both the
generation system and the piece set
• Easily iterate with little asset commitment
• Prototyping stages
• 2D representation
• 3D explorable levels
• Adding the funds
• Incorporating hazards

13. The Art Pipeline
• 2D tiles formed the blueprint for 3D pieces
• Precise construction ensured each piece
would snap together properly on the grid
• Pieces unwrapped, textured individually,
then tested in-game
• To minimize draw calls, pack as much into
a single texture sheet as possible
• Maximized reusability of pixel space for
shared components

14. Simple Maze Creation
• Creating mazes isn't overly hard
• Just placing appropriate pieces into the
world where there is a “road to nowhere”
• Very efficient approach

15. Algorithmic Maze Creation

52. Maze Verification
• We use some simple checks to validate the
mazes produced are interesting
• Number of dead-ends placed in the maze
• Straight-line Distance from start to end
• Number of pieces that have been placed
• If any of these checks fail, the maze is
rejected and a new one generated

53. Post-hoc Verification vs
Guided Generation
• Verification is a very simple process
• Guiding generation is way more complex
• Do we solve the simple problem multiple
times, or the complex problem once
• Your mileage may vary

54. Analytics
• Working out what the player is doing in
your game is majorly important
• You need to pay attention and dig into the
data to discover what’s actually going on

55. Export and Replay of
Content
• Analysis needs context
• We need to have the ability to export
configurations of levels
• Also need to be able to bypass PCG
system to load up a specific maze

56. Procedural Difficulty
• We have parameters that we're using:
• for generation, for verification, for ingame
properties
• So it isn't hard to see that if we start
manipulating these parameters we can
start varying the difficulty
• As the game progresses, we can control
the tone of the spaces being created

57. Player Modelling
• We can look at how the player is playing
the game and what they are choosing to
spend time on
• Then tailor the game to these tastes:
• Players who prefer exploration can be given
larger spaces
• Players who dash to the goal can be given tight
mazes with more hazards

58. Procedural Signposting
• How can we guide the player?
• Signposting is how designers subtly
influence player perceptions
• Lights under "important" doors
• Cover position suggesting enemy locations
• Can we generate these signs on the fly?
• In EM, we're playing with how we can use
our collectibles and hazards to help the
player flow towards the goal (or misdirect)

59. Challenges
• Tools development may rack up a
significant cost: both time and money
• Strong programming knowledge required
• significant debugging and refining
• responding to fringe cases
• Potential "sameness" generated spaces
• may be combated through:
• peppering in unique content
• combo approaches: both procedural and static

60. Challenges
• Balancing the power of your tools
• Easy Money? started out with 100 levels
• PCG is not ideal for all types of games

61. Summary
• Must evaluate the pros and cons of PCG
on a project-specific basic
• The methods here can be leveraged for
many different styles of games and tailored
to many different level structures

62. Takeaways
• Break levels down into modular pieces
• Establish the PCG system early
• Tight integration between artists, designers
and developers
• PCG will affect decisions made by all groups
• You can use PCG to turn your games to 11!

63. Alpha - http://easymoney.robotoverlord.co.uk/
Robot Overlord Games
!
Heather Decker-Davis
heather@robotoverlord.co.uk
@heathermdecker
!
Luke Dicken
luke@robotoverlord.co.uk
@LukeD