#procjam 2015

Ocean Tribes (ProcJam 2015)

ProcJam 2016 is just a little over a month away, so I’ve started taking another look at the projects from last year. Ocean Tribes is a little 4X by Oleg Dolya that takes place on a procedurally generated ocean map.

The shape, position, and special features of the islands are generated, and I like the feel of your gradually expanding exploration.

The late game is grindy due to the balance tipping strongly towards the defense, but it’s a jam project, so that’s not too surprising. What I really like here is the reminder that you can experiment with generative stuff even if you aren’t working with the latest whizzy game genres. 

You don’t have to make a 3D open-world seamless survival galaxy. There’s a lot of examples from the ‘80s and ‘90s of genres to take inspiration from: go experiment with making something inspired by Utopia, The Ancient Art of War, Seven Cities of Gold, Anacreon, Merchant Prince, Dragon Lord, Lords of Midnight, or something even more obscure. Atari-era games are especially good inspirations for game jams because the hardware constraints kept the scope tightly focused but they often had ideas that they were bursting at the seams to express.

mirrorlake

in last procjam,

did everest pipkin

these capsule worlds create,

their dithered aesthetic

forming links in my mind

between early computing

and alchemical diagrams

Fractal Forest (Procjam 2015)

Another ProcJam project from 2015′s jam. While the voronoi textures are eye-catching, the real purpose behind this one seems to be generating the node-based path movement graph.

The pathing doesn’t always respect the terrain height, but the aesthetic effect is rather striking. Though the textures aren’t generated at run time, the overall feel suggests an opportunity to make something that’s consciously and obviously entirely generative. Layering some additional levels of generators might break up the homogeneity and start to flower into something unique. Still, for a jam project: definitely eye-catching.

http://cry-havoc.itch.io/fractal-forest

Châteauxuaetâhc (ProcJam 2015)

Architecture has rules. Anything built with rules can be procedurally generated. For ProcJam 2015, Chris Welch did exactly that. 

The choice of French Baroque chateaux, with their modular construction and geometric gardens worked out rather well. 

ProcJam 2015

The official deadline is past and there are 96 entries this year. Go check them out! The talks have been posted on YouTube (and embedded at the top of this post.)

Timestamps for talks: 4:10 - Michael Cook - Welcome To PROCJAM! 15:58 - Kate Compton - Let It Grow: Practical Procedural Generation From The Ground Up 49:54 - Sean Oxspring and Kieran Hicks: Stuff And Things (Weird APIs) 1:22:53 - Dan Stubbs - The Hit 2:17:25 - Allison Parrish - Speaking Terms: A Few Thoughts On Verbalising The Semantic Web (YT Version Forthcoming) 2:46:15 - Tommy Thompson - First Foot Forward: Procedural Generation Research In Sure Footing 3:23:00 - Tom Betts - The Wider World Of Generation (With Musical Intro!) 4:28:00 - Complicated Intro To Thrice's Talk (there's some minor audio issues in the first minute also - sorry!) 4:30:55 - thricedotted - Found Lexicons, Generated Grammars: The Dynamic Possibilities Of Twitterbots 5:02:10 - Michael Cook - Closing

(If you’re still working on your submission, ProcJam has always accepted late submissions, because it’s not the kind of jam where that matters. Go ahead and email Michael Cook or tweet at @mtrc for a submission link!)

International Computational Creativity Conference is going on right now, and being livestreamed. (Join the livechat on YouTube)

Here’s yesterday’s talks: