this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Procedural generation is an interesting topic to me, as it forgoes traditional level design in favor of a bunch of formulas, rules, and random elements to make varied replayable gameplay.

One of my favorite procgen games is Dwarf Fortress, and how it creates a fully realized world with lore and history, and then places both fortress and adventures as relatively small stories in said world.

Also Deep rock galactic is great in varying its caves, from normal tunnels to massive caverns that you can only traverse using ziplines and platforms

Any other interesting procgen games?

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[–] simple 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Noita is a great one. Making a randomly generated world this consistent while simulating a million particles and not having it collapse on itself is really cool.

Despite the fact that I don't like No Man's Sky very much, its procedural generation is also pretty impressive. Planets have a lot of variety to them. It's a very pretty game.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

not having it collapse

I've dead ass had levels in this game where as soon as I load the safe zone shake my screen for minutes at a time. Like what y'all doing down there blowing all them boxes up?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

its always the damn worms, but at least you get to know about them

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It's likely gunpowder exploding in the coal pits. Happens a bunch yea

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I’ll agree with No Man’s Sky here as well. While sandbox type games aren’t my favorite (I do find the expeditions fun though) the amount of procedural generation is really cool.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same, though the base building is also one of the things that ties the procgen there together imo. Theres something just cool about being able to discover random player's bases organically by exploring, even if it is rare to actually find em in the quintillions of planets

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah I 100% agree with the base building aspect too. Especially when someone has a base advertising "free copper" or whatever. The low probability of finding stuff like that makes the game great.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Was going to say Noita. Such an amazing game

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This game is good

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't help the fact that the devs are super supportive of the game!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you mean doesn't hurt, but YES. Still releasing regular updates, patches, fixes, expansions, they rule.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I did mean that! Sorry brain has been on autopilot for the last few days.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Came here to comment this. The levels are awesome.

[–] ConfusedLlama 18 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Age of Empires 2 skirmish maps are procedurally generated, in contrast to other competitive RTS games of that style. It’s done quite well and makes scouting meaningful for reasons other than rock-paper-scissoring your opponent.

[–] MargotRobbie 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Minecraft/Terraria are obvious answers.

[–] curryandbeans 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When Minecraft was still fresh, there were times when the landscape was absolutely jaw dropping.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did this change? I saw videos of Minecraft with ray tracing enabled and it looked honestly stunning.

[–] curryandbeans 3 points 1 year ago

Honestly, probably not. It’s been a while since I booted it up though

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tough learning curve but yeah, one of the most impressive procedurally generated games out there.

There's plenty roguelikes/terminal games with procedurally generated content as well. ADOM or nethack are two of the most popular examples.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Tough learning curve --> Fun™

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Really surprised no one has said no man’s sky on here

[–] Chailles 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my opinion, I don't think No Man's Sky's procgen is very good. Or at least, it doesn't feel very good to experience. It just all feels so samey, partly because it's kind of "too diverse" and shows all it's got way too quickly.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're not wrong about that. I've only played about 15 hours of the game so far, but finding it to really feel samey most of the time

[–] Chailles 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The ironic thing is that if the game just looked more samey, it'd actually be less of an issue. If all these cool stuff wasn't everywhere, it would feel fresh for much longer.

Like you can tell what parts of the creatures are reused cause you've seen like a hundred species within a few hours.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah I had to stop playing. I got so bored just finding the second atlas station that I decided the game wasn’t for me.

I know there’s a lot of exploring to do, but everything is very repetitive

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is one thing I think Starbound did pretty well. Procgen creatures were mixed with premade creatures, and you'd only get a few species of procgen creatures per planet, so it took you a good while to start seeing different creatures with similar parts.

The planet generation, on the other hand...

[–] Chailles 1 points 1 year ago

Didn't Starbound get rid of their procgen creatures? Actually, I just looked it up, I guess they're still there but the not-procgen creatures are just everywhere and they were heavily reduced compared to the original versions of procedurally generated creatures.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It really is. I like no man's sky, but most of it starts looking very familiar fast.

Only exception, I still get good surprises with random creatures. Sure, they're all based on the same few structures, but once in awhile I get some perfect combination of funny, dorky and/or cool that I just can't refuse as my new pet.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Returnal is not fully procedural, it's lego like procedural.(rooms types are limited, but the layout is procedural.)

Riftbreaker(RTS-ish with a player controlled mecha) procedural generate the location and missions so the resource type distribution roughly matches how much you "expand" your area of control. (ie the more you expand outward, the more rare resource patches starts to show up.)

Many rougelike/lite use procedural generated levels.

[–] spedswir 8 points 1 year ago

Factorio has cool, and very customisable, procedurally generated maps. The ore distribution, quantity, biters, cliffs, water, all change game to game.

[–] afaix 8 points 1 year ago

I like how terraria and minecraft mix premade blocks with procedurally generated terrain, also Spelunky has interesting level generation, they even had a talk about it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is the best game of all time and changes gameplay (via powerups) in random combination that can make a god run or a really shit one. Highly recommend it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Which BOI game should I play first?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

7DaystoDie is the best world/terrain procedurally generated game to date.

Bonus is they just had Alpha21 update drop this week.

[–] scrof 4 points 1 year ago

Cogmind. Considering it's an always moving living dungeon where the player isn't necessary the center of attention it's very neat to just watch robots minding their own business around the complex.

Zorbus has gorgeous dungeons too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Remnant was pretty good.

[–] Call_Me_Maple 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Been playing Ravenswatch which has procgen. I believe the shape of the map is always the same, but the placement of enemies and map elements are all different. Procgen aside, I actually think it's a very compelling game, it's extremely fun solo and even better with friends. Currently it's in early access but is constantly being worked on, they added a new hero to play in it's most recent update.

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