A Path-Based Procedural Approach for Inferring Playable Game Levels

Abstract

Video games of today, whether we consider single player experiences, or multiplayer environments with massive sprawling communities, face a significant challenge in what they can offer a player. No matter how much time a developer spends on a project, the traditional content that is available to its users eventually reaches an end, either in quantity, where there are no more experiences available to the player, or in regards to experience, where a player can continue playing, at the cost of going through repeated content, usually consisting of the same levels, characters, and more. The modern answer to this problem relies on procedural generation. Avoiding the overuse of manual labor, which can be costly, both time-wise and money-wise, the smart utilization of randomness with the clever matching of in-game assets and systems, developers can create experiences that provide content to the player that never truly repeats itself. However, the generation of this type of content is still relatively complex and specific to each game and experience. Therefore, it would be inherently interesting to have a simplified method of establishing content generation rules for procedural content and also to easily generate that content inside well established attributes and constraints. Therefore, the proposed solution consists of developing the means to that very same method of content generation. With the help of sensors typically present in a mobile phone, we intend to capture location-related data, possibly along with other data such as the amount of light in said location, perhaps even pressure or sound. We shall then develop a tool capable of operating on this data and according to user-provided parameters, generate playable content that is always new and a fresh experience. Finally, we need to carefully study the reliability of the resulting content, surveying possible users and concluding whether these procedural experiences are truly easy to create, and enjoyable for the player.