Playing with Data: Procedural Generation of Adventures from Open Data


Barros Gabriella A.B. Liapis Antonios Togelius Julian
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

This paper investigates how to generate simple adventure games using open data. We present a system that creates a plot for the player to follow based on associations between Wikipedia articles which link two given topics (in this case people) together. The Wikipedia articles are transformed into game objects (locations, NPCs and items) via constructive algorithms that also rely on geographical information from OpenStreetMaps and visual content from Wikimedia Commons. The different game objects generated in this fashion are linked together via clues which point to one another, while additional false clues and dead ends are added to increase the exploration value of the final adventure game. This information is presented to the user via a set of game screens and images. Inspired by the “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” adventure game, the end result is a generator of chains of followable clues.

 

A Procedural Critique of Deontological Reasoning


Togelius Julian
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper describes a prototype game that learns its rules from the actions and commands of the player. This game can be seen as an implementation and procedural critique of Kant’s categorical imperative, suggesting to the player that (1) the maxim of an action is in general underdetermined by the action and its context, so that an external observer will more often than not get the underlying maxim wrong, and that (2) most ingame actions are morally “wrong” in the sense that they do not contribute to wellbalanced game design. But it can also be seen as an embryo for an authoring tool for game designers, where they can easily and fluidly prototype new game mechanics.