Browsing by Author "Birra, Fernando"
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- Automatic level generation for platform videogames using genetic algorithmsPublication . Mourato, Fausto; Santos, Manuel Próspero dos; Birra, FernandoIn this document we present an investigation on automatically generating levels for platform videogames. Common approaches for this problem are rhythm based, where input patterns are transformed in a valid geometry, and chunk based, where samples are humanly created and automatically assembled like a puzzle. The proposal hereby presented is to explore this challenge with the usage of Genetic Algorithms, facing it as a search problem, in order to achieve higher expressivity and less linearity than in rhythm based approach and without requiring human creation as it happens with the chunk based approach. With simple heuristics the system is able to generate playable levels in a small amount of time (one level is created in less than a minute) and with considerable diversity, as our results show.
- Enhancing level difficulty and additional content in platform videogames through graph analysisPublication . Mourato, Fausto; Birra, Fernando; Santos, Manuel Próspero dosIn this article we present a system that enhances content in platform game levels. This is achieved by adding particular gaming entities and adjusting their arrangement, causing consequent changes in the inherent difficulty and in path related aspects. This idea follows our prior work for the automatic creation of level environments. Starting with a primal level structure and a corresponding graph that sketches the user path, the system detects mandatory and optional path sections and adapts them in order to create more elaborate challenges to the user, forcing detours to gather specific objects or trigger certain events. Alternatively, a designer can create that base level structure and use the algorithm to adapt it to a certain profile. Also, some adjustments can be made to enhance multiplayer cooperative gaming for uneven skilled players, where the path is adapted to force a difficult route to one player and an easier one for the other player. Our experiments showed interesting results on some popular games, where it is possible to observe the previous principles put into practise. The approach is generic and can be expanded to other similar games.
- The challenge of Automatic Level Generation for platform videogames based on Stories and QuestsPublication . Mourato, Fausto; Birra, Fernando; Santos, Manuel Próspero dosIn this article we bring the concepts of narrativism and ludology to automatic level generation for platform videogames. The initial motivation is to understand how this genre has been used as a storytelling medium. Based on a narrative theory of games, the differences among several titles have been identified. In addition, we propose a set of abstraction layers to describe the content of a quest-based story in the particular context of videogames. Regarding automatic level generation for platform videogames, we observed that the existing approaches are directed to lower abstraction concepts such as avatar movements without a particular context or meaning. This leads us to the challenge of automatically creating more contextualized levels rather than only a set of consistent and playable entertaining tasks. With that in mind, a set of higher level design patterns are presented and their potential usages are envisioned and discussed.