![]() When the Spore editors were being designed, the engineers, designers worked closely with the art team to understand how an artist or an animator would go about sculpting and texturing a creature. I talk more about this approach in my 2015 Procjam talk. For many situations, like game jams or prototypes or side projects, you can be more flexible and improvisational! You can start with a methods or some loose pieces to figure out what it ‘wants’ to generate (what properties is it best at generating?) and then revising what artifacts you are generating to better suit what the generator is good at making. Now we have the guidance we need to start building methods that make artifacts.Īn alternative approach: the previously described method is good for inflexible situations, where you know ahead of time what you want to build. We’ll also want a range of artifacts, not just the same perfect artifact over and over and over, though how wide a range that is is a choice for you, the designer (a problem identified by Gillian Smith and being explored by Michael Cook). We want a generator with a possibility space (all the kinds of artifacts it can generate) where most of the artifacts have the good properties, and few (or none) of the artifacts have bad properties. ![]() You now have a list of desirable properties and constraints that you want and don’t want for your artifacts. The most reliable generators are the ones where you can concretely describe constraints. Put a star next to anything that absolutely must not happen. Now flip the question on its head: what makes a “bad” example of this artifact? List everything you can think of, including properties that are merely unfortunate, and properties that are total deal-breakers. The easiest generators to make are the ones where you can describe “good” artifacts as sets concrete properties. I can come up with more properties of a good paranormal regency romance novel than I can come up with rules for a good novel. What does a “fun” level mean? “Fun” will mean very different things for Super Mario or Civilization or Bejeweled. What qualities does a good one of those artifacts have? “Funny”, “Harmonic”, “Playable”? Now go deeper: the more specific the kind of thing you are making, the more specific and detailed you can get with these requirements. Inhale, exhale, and start writing down everything you know about what makes one of those successful. We’ll refer to this as your “artifact” but it could be anything: procedural birds, generated stories, animated dance choreography, gazpacho recipes, RPG quests, chess variants. Write down the thing that your generator will make. I’ll give you a list of questions to ask yourself, and advice to match the possible answers. With so many possible kinds of generators, what advice can I give? Any advice will depend on what kind of generator you want to build. (edit: it turned out to be 4000 words long, so enjoy the ride!) The advice is meant for any kind of generators: humorous twitterbots, fanciful art-making bots, level generators, planet builders, makers of music, architecture, poetry, and cocktails. It’s also for practiced experts who want a way to organize their knowledge. This is a beginner-level advice essay for people just getting started with building generators.
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