A Hybrid Approach to Procedural Generation of Roguelike Video Game Levels

Date

2020

Authors

Gellel, Alexander
Sweetser Kyburz, Penny

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Abstract

Algorithmic generation of data, known as procedural content generation, is an attractive prospect within the game development industry as a means of creating infinitely fresh and varied content. In this paper, we present an approach to level generation for roguelike dungeon style levels, based on our examination of the suite of existing approaches used in formal research. Our generator aims to create simple dungeon style level layouts that are always playable. We utilise a hybrid technique combining context free grammars to generate a description of levels and a cellular automata inspired process to generate the physical space. The generator proves successful at consistently generating dungeon layouts that maintain completability at all times with sufficient variation, when accounting for the occasional need for corrective actions. We conclude that there is substantial value in hybrid approaches to automated level design and propose a new heuristic by which to assess dungeon style level content.

Description

Keywords

procedural content generation, PCG, context free grammars, game design, dungeons, roguelike

Citation

Source

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Type

Conference paper

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

Restricted until

2099-12-31

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