Randomness in Games
Author
Jakobsen, Camilla Grønbjerg
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2017
Submitted on
2017-06-02
Pages
65
Abstract
Denne afhandling undersøger, om en procedurel quest-generator kan skabe missioner baseret på den samme underliggende struktur, som alligevel føles forskellige, hver gang en spiller møder dem. Procedurel generering betyder her, at indhold laves automatisk ved hjælp af regler og tilfældighed. Systemet modellerer separate motivationer hos NPC’er (ikke-spiller-karakterer) for at udstede en mission og knytter mulige strategier til at gennemføre missioner med den motivation. For at skabe variation i hver forekomst af en lignende mission varieres der tilfældigt i spawn-punkter, antal delmål, hvilke genstande der indgår, hvilke fjender spilleren møder, og hvilken NPC der giver missionen. Systemet blev integreret i en RPG-lignende spilprototype i Unity og testet af 67 deltagere. Deltagerne oplevede, at de genererede missioner føltes forskellige og varierede, og de tilskrev dette især de tilfældige variationer i mængder, genstande og fjender. Resultaterne peger på, at en generator, der kombinerer en fælles struktur med målrettet tilfældig variation, kan få gentagne missioner til at føles friske uden at ændre den grundlæggende opbygning.
This thesis examines whether a procedural quest generator can create quests that share the same underlying structure yet feel different each time a player encounters them. Here, procedural generation means creating content automatically using rules and randomness. The system models separate motivations for NPCs (non-player characters) to give a quest and links these to possible strategies for completing quests with that motivation. To vary each instance of a similar quest, it randomizes spawn points, the number of objectives, the items involved, the enemies faced, and which NPC assigns the quest. The system was integrated into a role-playing game prototype built in Unity and tested with 67 participants. Participants reported that the generated quests felt different and varied, attributing this mainly to the random amounts, items, and enemies. These findings suggest that combining a shared structure with targeted random variation can make repeatable quests feel fresh without changing their core design.
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