An interesting article over at the BLDGBLOG about procedural generation of cities. That’s a topic I’m really interested in and that article is a good quick read with some interesting links to further stories.
Especially noteworthy are the game Subversion from Introversion and the procedural city project from Shamus Young of DM of the Rings webcomic fame. Also Viktor Antonov, designer of City 17 is mentioned in there. If you remember, I’ve already stumbled over him in the EDGE podcast I linked to a few days back.
Check it out.
Also if anyone has some additional info on Marco Corbettas Structure, I’d love if you could share…
EDIT: Here’s a YouTube video on Structure.
The article I’ve been mentioning and working on in the past couple of weeks is finally online. You can read No More Wrong Turns over at Gamasutra. It deals with ways that Game and Level Designers can steer the movement of players.
Give it a read and please let me know what you think. I’m eager to get some feedback. Feel free to post a comment over at Gamasutra or here on my blog.
I just stumbled over this feature from Edge magazine called Architecture and Videogames. It’s a recording of a panel on – who would have guessed – Games and Architecture. It’s avilable as an mp3 on the link above and it’s really interesting. I’ve found inspiration to get back to two blog articles I’ve already started. Be warned though, the recording is quite long.
The panel is made up out of a mix of people who have a background in both architecture and video game development. They do make a lot of interesting points on what digital game architecture is and how it relates to physical architecture. I particularly liked the comments about the design of experiences, something that’s firmly in the realm of level design. It’s the job of a level to provide an entertaining joyride with highs and lows. On the other hand there’s few architectural spaces that are designed to provide experiences. The few exceptions that do are things like theme parks or monumental architecture.
