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[Caio]

I was thinking "content that can be different every time you play", so it's pretty close. Also a damn great idea.

[Ivan]

Also, if you want to get into the details of things, random numbers on computers aren't random at all either. It's just a algorithm that comes up with a sequence of numbers based on a specific seed. That's why when you use the rand() function in C, the random numbers are the same every time you run the program and you have to seed it with something like current time.

[mewse]

Yeah that's a nice idea but I'm not sure that's what everybody was thinking when talking about "procedurally generated".

Likely true, but it does seem to be what Derek intended, based on the initial description of the "procedurally generated" option:

Procedurally Generated - Everything (you can manage) is procedurally generated, from the text to the graphics to the music to the gameplay.  The player should expect a very different experience every time they play.

[Zaphos]

Yeah, i think the defining factor for "procedural" vs "algorythmicvally pushed" should be that with procedural generation you should start from a small amount of data (for example a 32-bit number) and from that small data , the procedure would be able to create a larger data set (for example a heightmap) that would be always the same if the procedure is kept the same.

I don't think you can just look at a data in vs data out ratio.  First because you'd just be describing compression.  Second because it seems like you could use a whole lot of data (for example, extensive satellite imagery) + an algorithm (for example, texture synthesis) to generate a relatively small amount of new plausible data (for example, a new aerial photograph of a location that doesn't actually exist).  And that could still be parameterized on a few settings, and it would still be procedural in my view.

I think perhaps it's fine to leave the competition intentionally vague, and just see what people come up with.

[december]

I guess one interesting way to go about this (that I plan on doing) is to have every procedural element of the game be generated based on a seed, which would be given by the player at startup. So the player can experiment with different seeds, or even use the same seed constantly and have the same experience if they want to.

I seem to recall that Chris Crawford's game "Guns & Butter" used this to generate the world.  The player typed in the name of the world he wanted to play in, and that string was used as the random seed to generate the world map, road network, resource allocations, etc.  Enter the same name again, and you'd get the same world back again.

I reckon that's a pretty awesome way to do it.  User provides the seed, and it's in a human-friendly format, rather than players having to note down a random integer in case they end up wanting to revisit a particular game instance.

Yeah that's a nice idea but I'm not sure that's what everybody was thinking when talking about "procedurally generated".

When I think of procedurally generated content two things immediately come to mind.  Roguelikes and Audiosurf.  I consider both to be awsoma.

[Lukas]

Warning Forever.

[joshg]

The classic example of using procedural content generation *without* randomness is Elite.  It had a massive universe you could fly around in which was always the same, but it was generated procedurally so that it could fit on a floppy disk at the time.  The later sequels, Frontier and whatever the other one was called, went so far as to generate entire planet terrains (for every planet in the huge galaxy) that were created to scale for you to fly around.

Usually a technique like this is very similar to one that's randomized; you just set the random number generator with the same starting seed value each time.

[Hideous]

Oh hell no. I wanna play those games now.

[Izzimach]

I'm late to the party, but I'll vote procedural and sprite hack for completeness.

Also, people unable to participate in a procedural compo because they think they might be unable to manage the programming side makes me sad.  Would it be possible to--for example--write a simple roguelike dungeon generator and make it accessable/ingestible by MMF?  I dunno much about how MMF or its cousins work.

[Melly]

I'm late to the party, but I'll vote procedural and sprite hack for completeness.

Also, people unable to participate in a procedural compo because they think they might be unable to manage the programming side makes me sad.  Would it be possible to--for example--write a simple roguelike dungeon generator and make it accessable/ingestible by MMF?  I dunno much about how MMF or its cousins work.

I don't think it's really all that difficult to make very simple procedural generation. I believe I can make a very simple dungeon generator in GM in a matter of hours, even with limited experience in that kind of stuff. (though I'm not sure I'd be able to let you walk in it and stuff )

Problems may arise when you make more than 2 or 3 procedural systems, which have to properly interact with eachother and such. I'm not totally sure it'd actually be difficult, but personally I have a few good ideas of things I'd try to get done anyway.

[narasu]

Photograph and Sprite Hack

[jcromartie]

I am absolutely in love with the procedural idea.

[Pixelfish]

procedural and demake

[narasu]

I think it's time to start counting up the votes?

[Alex May]

Proc gen + sprite hack

but I reckon do a proper vote-thread

[Zaphos]

I think it's time to start counting up the votes?

It's roughly 26:8 in favor of procedural, and 25:9 in favor of demakes.

[Hideous]

frig, I'd have no idea how to do procedural.

[Zaphos]

frig, I'd have no idea how to do procedural.

Then it will be educational!

[Melly]

Once the compo starts it would be good for people to post things like "VERY simple way to do procedural content!" just so that people without an expertise (me) can do sum games.

[besttof]

some techniques that might be worth looking into:

Markov Chains
L Systems
Genetic Algortihms

Though, some might be considered as glorified random generators

Also, mister Karl Simms has some very interesting papers and videos.

edit: fixed urls too