Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development

By : Ryan Watkins
Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development

By: Ryan Watkins

Overview of this book

Procedural Content Generation is a process by which game content is developed using computer algorithms, rather than through the manual efforts of game developers. This book teaches readers how to develop algorithms for procedural generation that they can use in their own games. These concepts are put into practice using C# and Unity is used as the game development engine. This book provides the fundamentals of learning and continued learning using PCG. You'll discover the theory of PCG and the mighty Pseudo Random Number Generator. Random numbers such as die rolls and card drafting provide the chance factor that makes games fun and supplies spontaneity. This book also takes you through the full development of a 2D game. Starting with level generation, you'll learn how PCG can make the game environment for you. You'll move into item generation and learn the different techniques to procedurally create game items. Thereafter, you'll be guided through the more abstract PCG areas such as scaling difficulty to the player and even generating music! The book helps you set up systems within your games where algorithms create computationally generated levels, art assets, quests, stories, characters, and weapons; these can substantially reduce the burden of manually creating every aspect of the game. Finally, you'll get to try out your new PCG skills on 3D terrain generation.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development
Credits
Disclaimer
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The player sandbox


The player sandbox has become very popular lately. Even some games that have a linearly progressing story will provide open areas for the player to explore and generally progress the story at their own will. Allowing the player to do as they will is a form of content generation. It is also the other way to procedurally generate story.

Hello Games' No Man's Sky is a giant sandbox that is meant for the player to explore. There is no formal story, per say, but the player will go on many adventures simply exploring the game universe. This is one answer to procedurally generating story.

The sandbox is also a good way to generate content simply by constructing some tools and letting the player build their own world. Keep in mind that procedural generation does not always mean random generation. Allowing the player to build their own experience has the same effect, if not providing more immersion, then randomly generating the experience for them.

Terraria allowing players to build...