Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development

By : Dale Green
Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development

By: Dale Green

Overview of this book

Procedural generation is a growing trend in game development. It allows developers to create games that are bigger and more dynamic, giving the games a higher level of replayability. Procedural generation isn’t just one technique, it’s a collection of techniques and approaches that are used together to create dynamic systems and objects. C++ is the industry-standard programming language to write computer games. It’s at the heart of most engines, and is incredibly powerful. SFML is an easy-to-use, cross-platform, and open-source multimedia library. Access to computer hardware is broken into succinct modules, making it a great choice if you want to develop cross-platform games with ease. Using C++ and SFML technologies, this book will guide you through the techniques and approaches used to generate content procedurally within game development. Throughout the course of this book, we’ll look at examples of these technologies, starting with setting up a roguelike project using the C++ template. We’ll then move on to using RNG with C++ data types and randomly scattering objects within a game map. We will create simple console examples to implement in a real game by creating unique and randomised game items, dynamic sprites, and effects, and procedurally generating game events. Then we will walk you through generating random game maps. At the end, we will have a retrospective look at the project. By the end of the book, not only will you have a solid understanding of procedural generation, but you’ll also have a working roguelike game that you will have extended using the examples provided.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Creating a random player character


In Chapter 3, Using RNG with C++ Data Types, we gave our player random stats. Let's continue and develop the player object further. We'll give our player a random class, and use this to set an appropriate sprite and stats. We'll also give the player random traits that will buff certain stats.

Choosing a player class

Let's start by assigning the player a random class. The first step is to define an enumerator that will define the possible classes. We'll place this with the rest of the enumerators in Util.h:

// Player classes.
enum class PLAYER_CLASS {
  WARRIOR,
  MAGE,
  ARCHER,
  THIEF,
  COUNT
};

Now, in the constructor of the player class, we'll select one of these classes at random. To do this, we need to generate a number from 0 to 3, and use it as an index in the enumerator. We'll also create a variable to hold the selection in case we wish to use it later.

We'll start by declaring the variable in Player.h, as follows:

/**
 * The player's class.
 */
PLAYER_CLASS...