#procjam 2014

Happy Recipes for Weird Things

From ProcJam 2014, a short talk by Fernando Ramallo (who is the co-designer for Panoramical, an exploration of procedurally generated musical landscapes). 

His focus is on using procedural generation as a tool for discovery. We can use it to unearth ideas that would never have occurred to us on our own. He also points out that the flexibility of procedural generation means that you can let the player interact with the generator. 

The video is dense with ideas: there’s lot’s more in there. Go watch it!

Procedural generation doesn’t have to stop once the player starts playing the game. In fact, it might be better if it keeps going: interactive procedural generation can set up a feedback loop with the player, enhancing both the player’s experience and the quality of the procedural generation itself.

Dreamer of Electric Sheep (2014)

A procedurally generated text adventure by Tom Coxton. Text adventure content has a long history in procedural generation, but what makes Dreamer of Electric Sheep interesting to talk about is its combination of the ConceptNet database of relationships between concepts and its machine-dreaming framing. The interactions are sometimes disturbingly logical.

Procedural Doesn’t Mean Random (2015)

A PROCJAM talk, centering around an important point: interesting procedurally generated content isn’t random, though it makes use of randomness. Lots of talk about No Man’s Sky and some of the philosophies of creating procedurally generated content.