Generative World Design: Love
Not sure I completely understand this, but Rock, Paper, Shotgun is reporting an MMORPG which is being created by one developer (Eskil Steenburg) who is using generative design techniques to create his world. The idea of a single programmer/artist creating anything game-like is exciting in the age of 30 person EA teams being needed for everything. But to have it be a generatively designed world, and one that looks like the screenshots here, is amazing. RPS is also gaga:
Since Steenberg is a one man show, he’s relying on clever maths to build the world for him and then clever gamers to come in and help him figure out where to take it, and what to do with it.So far he’s already populated it with weird animals and wondrous, gaseous visuals, and he intends to build the world into a kind of communal adventure, where gamers work together to furnish a central village, defend it from enemy attack, and explore the surround world and its many dungeons. Players will be able to do things like deform elements of terrain, allowing them to build tunnel networks or walls to defend their property. Items will also be intended for the good of all as Steenberg creates them and drops them into the world. You won’t be picking up rifles in your adventures, but more likely the plans for the rifle-building machine, that can then be utilised by everyone in your village. Part Zelda, part Tale In The Desert, part adventure shooter, and wholly abstract and beautiful, Love looks the kind of amalgam of art, programming and internet savvy that we’ve desired without even being able to imagine. It has the potential, and Steenberg has the huge intellect, for this to be one of the most precious events in PC gaming.
The glowing passage above arose from seeing Steenberg (the programmer) at GDC. (i’m not sure I’m all that excited about ‘gaseous visuals’, but the rest sounds nifty.) The site for the game is a cryptic mix of vision language for the game (love is . . .) and techno-speak describing the engine and tools for creating within it. Probably wisely, there is no place to sign up. Steenburg is saying he only needs a couple hundred players to validate and build the world.
