I don't just play games cause they're fun. I play them for science. The case in point, is noticing procedural content in one game that I certainly never expected to be talking about.
Animal Crossing.
You might ask what about animal crossing is procedural, and that's the obvious question, because everyhing *seems* the same each time you play, right?
It's not, not quite. There are a few dozen characters you can ecounter in the game, many of whom are the same, but some of whom are random. I don't know what, if anything, the generated characters are based on, but simply having a random assortment of pre-generated characters who will react to you in a somewhat random way makes the game procedurally generated. They can move out, and more characters move in and so on - to some interesting results, though as a downside, there's a lot of the game you cannot get unless you have a group of friends playing the game at the same time.
There are other aspects of the game that are procedural too. Weeds grow randomly around town, fish and insects appear randomly based on the time of day and the season, amongst other things.
I suppose some of this could be considered 'random' instead of 'procedural', but I like to think this sort of programming is making it's way into a wider spectrum than just RPG games ad the occasional shooter.
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I don't think Animal Crossing is as procedural as you might think. All of the different animal characters are pre-set. There are probably about 200 different animals with a set personality that have a bunch of variables that can change depending on how often you talk to them, how many times you hit them with an ax, etc. Even then, if you leave them alone for an hour, they will still like you just the same as before.
ReplyDeleteAs well, the animals don't really do much beside walk around the outside of their house in the day, inside their house in the morning and evening, and sleep at night. Plus those times are pre-set.
To me, it's about as flexible and procedural as an MMO like WoW, without combat. They're happy if you do their fetch quests, unhappy if you don't, and give you random loot for little reason every once in a while.