procedural games – Steven Savage

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

As we wait for No Man’s Sky (and due to the recent delay, wait more than we thought), I wanted to explore just what No Man’s Sky is about and what it means for the final game.

It’s obvious I’m a big booster of the game. I even feel that everyhing NMS promises is likely due to what they’re doing and how it’s approached. I consdier a delay completely understandable and probably a good thing.

So now I’d like to take a look behind the curtain of No Man’s Sky and make a shocking statement – none of the gameplay is particuarly innovative.

Shocking? Amazing? Clickbait? No, actually the gameplay for NMS has been done before, which is both why it will succeed and why it will probably be good.

The Parts of The Journey

So, let’s look at what No Man’s Sky promises. A quick examination and you’ll realize that it’s almost all be done before.

A Galaxy To Travel: Seen this since the old Elite days, it was there in Captain Blood, it exist today in Elite: Dangerous, Starbound, and more. The quality of planets may vary, but no, nothing unusual here. Speaking of planets, NMS promises . . .

Procedural Worlds: Sure Minecraft brought the idea of a huge procedural 3D world, but since then it’s kind of become standard. It seems every ten games out there promises a planet-sized world or giant sandbox. NMS just promises more, though what’s appearing is really all math. On those worlds you’ll experience . . .

Encountering Life And Recording It And The World: Though we’ve seen that with, say, Pokemon snap and most games that let you name things and places. Yes, it’s nice, but exploration has been a part of games for awhile. Though while you find new ways to name creatures, you’ll be engaged in . . .

A Survival Sim: NMS offers you a chance to mine resources and avoid nasty critters in an environment that’s temporarily modifiable (yes, theres some promise of permanent, but it doesn’t sound like every grenade scar remains). We’ve seen this before in many game forms, and though the procedural nasties and environments are nice, it’s still something other’s have done. Of course while survive, you’ll be busy . . .

Crafting Items: I do not have to explain how we’ve seen crafting games before. So let’s move on to when you get tired and get offplanet via . . .

Spaceflight: Yes, No Man’s Sky lets you take off of planets, fly through virtual solar systems, and so forth. Again, we’ve seen that since back in the day of Eon or Starglider. Sure there’s space combat, which we’ve also seen. Of course to have those ships you need . . .

Supplies And Trade: Space trading games have been around for decades as well. NMS sounds like it has a relatively simple mine-and-trade, make-and-trade, and get-credits-and-trade game. Nothing much new, though some of your interactions will involve . . .

Alien Races: NMS is going to have various races and factions. You’ll interact with individuals and do things that affect reputations with various factions. In turn, that’ll affect how they treat you. It’s neat, and the language system is nice (though you may see similar mechanics, such as the ones in Out there), but again, we’ve seen it before.

So, No Man’s Sky, when you look at the parts, has been done before. In fact, it’s kind of been done to death in separate pieces.

Which is why the game will not only work, but probably be amazing.

The Greater Sum Of Familiar Parts

So the fact that NMS has a lot of standard gameplay elements is a good thing.

First, it means that they can be done. There’s precedent, research, examples, and more for the creators at Hello Games to draw on to make the game work. There’s math and there’s code and there’s a sense of history to know what to do and what not to do.

Secondly it means Hello Games is using familiar mechanics which means the game will (probably) be quite playabe. The game’s familiarity is going to make its wide, procedural universe, accessible to people.

Third, it means the game will proably be well polished because it builds on familiar ideas.

It’s great NMS is made of so many common parts, because all these common parts can be done well and in a playable manner. That means the combination . . .

. . . the combinaion will probably be amazing.

Take all these familiar mechanics and ideas. Polish and organize them. Now link them together coherently in a universe made from procedural algorithms so you experience effective gameplay in an infinite set of worlds. Now give it that unique 70’s sci-fi cover look.

That’s the magic. No Man’s Sky is both evolutionary and revolutionary, building on familiar parts, but tying them together in a way that hasn’t been done yet. It’s not the components, it’s the combination, all these popular elements tied together tightly to give you a galaxy, a universe.

Nothing Special Is Amazing

So, no, NMS rally doesn’t push the boundaries of games so much as it has many mechanics merged together to create the experience of exploring the universe. That means it can succeed, that means’ it’ll be accessible – and that means that it’s probably going to be pretty amazing.

What’s behind the CUrtain? Not The Wizard of Oz working a con-job, but more a group of actors putting on a show. We look behind the curtain and see “yeah, these folks are doin a pretty good job.”

Now we can enjoy the show in Agust.

– Steve

(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

As I wait for No Man’s Sky (if I disappear for a week in June, you know why), I’ve been analyzing the game, what it means, and what it tells us about procedural entertainment. Today I’d like to focus on crafting.

I love crafting. I enjoyed the Atelier series of games, finding new alchemical potions. I love Starbound‘s crafting (OK, maybe I’ll vanish in July too). You can guess that Minecraft was a revelation. This all goes back to Demon’s Winter, a vastly underrated DOS game that let you build magic items.

With No Man’s Sky, the huge emphasis on crafting has me intrigued. The thrill of finding elements, the joy of a discovered blueprint, the fun of creating the right components. I love the challenge of building the ideal loadout, and NMS is going to give me that and all of the exploration and resource collecting. I’m looking forward to it.

I will be the guy staying on one crap planet for hours because of a wealth of ruins filled with schematics. Trust me.

No Man’s Sky provides a mixture of real and made-up elements, a nice nod to both recognizability and to the proper sci-fi feel. But as I’ve watched the game, I’ve come to realize there’s another, missed opportunity that other games should take up.

Procedural elements.

Imagine a game like NMS (or NMS II, which again I feel is possible) that has procedural elements. The joy of discovery is not just felt on finding a new world or a new blueprint, a strange crystal or interesting rock formation could hold an element no one else has seen. There could be elements even the creators hadn’t foreseen, out there, lurking.

Sci-Fi and fantasy is often about strange and unusual materials. Let’s see more of that in games.

Of course to make them useful and understandable, procedural elements would need to be handled in certain ways. here’s my thoughts on it:

Where They Fit

Procedural elements would have to work into an existing crafting structure. The elements have to have some recognizable use despite their procedural nature. This would likely mean:

The crafting structure recognizes general classes of elements (builds weapons, catalyst, etc) and procedural elements fit a general class but have unique cases. “Iron” is the same all over, but that procedural deposit of “Dekelite” has unique traits, thought both can be used to build weapons.
Thecrafting structure recognizes specific elements, and procedural elements can “substitute” for regular ones and bring certain benefits. Thus “Chromatic Polytanium” may substitute for “Copper,” but any scanning device built with it has extra bonuses.
Items that are used to power/supply other items may provide unique bonuses. A unique element that provides energy may, perhaps, deliver double the fuel value of a common one.

Unique Traits

It’d be pretty easy to make procedural elements that seem very samey, so work would have to be done to vary them. The need for variance would depend on how often they’d be encountered, of course (more on that later). But traits may vary along such areas as:

Specific use.
Elements they substitute/are used for.
Bonuses and combinations of bonuses.
Disadvantages and tradeoffs.
Additional effects (perhaps if you make a potion with this element it always confers invisibility)
Physical traits (even different colors or weights).

A game that uses procedural elements should have enough variances that they’re actually interesting, unique, ad surprising. Otherwise it might not be worth implementing.

But done right it could be amazing. Imagine traipsing through a fantasy forest to discover a rare gem deposit whose naturally holy traits repel demons and confer charisma. Imagine exploring a distant world to find a fuel source that boosts your hyperdrive beyond capacity – but will wear down your spaceship. Each finding is something unique, wondrous.

When You Can, Add Story

I’ve written about the need for procedural games to have pproceduralhistory. Same goes for procedural elements – I can’t say it’s required, but having “more” to the elements than a name and trait may be neat.

Maybe a procedural element in a fantasy game exists because a certain area is irradiated with magic. A procedural element in a SF game may have unusual energy properties because it was formed on a planet near the sun. Add something tomake the elements meaningful.

Or at least give us some flavor text for fun. Something to help us build our own story.

Oh and make sure the names are appropriate. I’d much rather find Chromatic Steel with it’s ability to make swords tht dazzle with rainbow light than a similar element called Furbonanium. Only use nonsense if it fits.

Don’t Overdo it

Finally, unless procedural elements are a theme of the game (and it may be), don’t overdo them. If you want these elements to stand out, then they have to stand out.

In any game of reasonable gameplay (20-40 hours) odds should be that only 1 or 2 procedural elements are found unless that’s a core part of the game. An element like this should be fascinating, amazng, perhaps game-changing – and overdoing it reduces the wonder.

That moment you find that rare deposit should be one you remember for the rest of the game.

So that’s my take on where NMS’ offspring should go – and a lesson we can learn from the current development of NMS. If a game focuses on the wonder of discovery and crafting, why not surprise your audience with procedural elements. Give people that unique experience that is personal – and perhaps theirs and theirs alone.