Constructive generation methods for dungeons and levels

Abstract

This chapter addresses a specific type of game content, the dungeon, and a number of commonly used methods for generating such content. These methods are all " constructive " , meaning that they run in fixed (usually short) time, and do not evaluate their output in order to re-generate it. Most of these methods are also relatively simple to implement. And while dungeons, or dungeon-like environments, occur in a very large number of games, these methods can often be made to work for other types of content as well. We finish the chapter by talking about some constructive generation methods for Super Mario Bros. levels. 3.1 Dungeons and levels A dungeon, in the real world, is a cold, dark and dreadful place where prisoners are kept. A dungeon, in a computer game, is a labyrinthine environment where ad-venturers enter at one point, collect treasures, evade or slay monsters, rescue noble people, fall into traps and ultimately exit at another point. This conception of dun-geons probably originated with the role-playing board game Dungeons and Drag-ons, and has been a key feature of almost every computer role-playing game (RPG), including genre-defining games such as the Legend of Zelda series and the Final Fantasy series, and recent megahits such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Of par-ticular note is the " roguelike " genre of games which, following the original Rogue from 1980, features procedural runtime dungeon generation; the Diablo series is a high-profile series of games in this tradition. Because of this close relationship with such successful games, and also due to the unique control challenges in their design, dungeons are a particularly active and attractive PCG subject. For the purposes of this chapter, we define adventure and RPG dungeon levels as labyrinthic environments, consisting mostly of interrelated challenges, rewards and puzzles, tightly paced in time and space to offer highly structured gameplay progressions [9]. An aspect which sets dungeons apart from other types of levels 31