This research evaluates two-dimensional top-down dungeon generated levels regarding fundamental and micro dungeon design patterns. Additionally, it investigates the meaningfulness of the evaluation results in terms of accessibility to level designers and similar. The research method concentrates on two dungeon-generation techniques – Cellular Automata and Drunkard Walk. Each generated level gets evaluated based on three evaluation stages that build on top of each other: the passability of each tile; categorization of each collection of tiles with the same attributes; and player-centric gameplay data. The results show key differences between Cellular Automata and Drunkard Walk as the risk of using Cellular Automata to generate up to 90% unreachable space, while drunkard walk always has a playable relative space size of 100%. The evaluation also shows results that depend on the requirements of a game or constraints of a level designer. Cellular Automata generates more rooms, while Drunkard Walk provides more decisions per room. In conclusion, the evaluation results show differences between the two algorithms, presented using a vocabulary that is familiar to a level designer.

Procedural Content Generation (PCG) is a tool for developers to take advantage of the computational power of the computer in order to create new content. There are many different method that a PCG program is able to utilize but finding the most optimal may be very challenging. In this paper we improved Evolution Dungeon Designer (EDD) by integrate symmetry and similar fitness function. We evaluated them with experiments and a user study that involved participants that are active in the field of game development. We can see that both symmetry and similar functions can easily be integrated for creating 2D dungeon rooms but has the potential of overwhelm the existing functions.

An Evolutionary Algorithm was run in real-time for the procedural generation ofenemies in a third-person, wave based hack and slash and shoot 'em up game. Thealgorithm evaluates enemies as individuals based on their effectiveness at battlingthe player character. Every generation is presented as a new wave of enemieswhose properties have been adjusted according to the fitness of the last wave. Byconstantly making new enemies more adept at the task of the defeating the currentplayer, I attempt to automatically and naturally raise the difficulty as the gameprogresses. The goal is also to improve player satisfaction as a result. By analyzingthe response from players and observing the changes of the generated enemies, Idetermine whether or not this is an appropriate implementation of EvolutionaryAlgorithms. Results showed that the success of the algorithm varied substantiallybetween tests, giving a number of both failed and successful tests. I go throughsome of the individual data and draw conclusions on what specific conditions makesthe algorithm perform desirably.

Procedural content generation is a useful tool to use when generating content for games. An issue with this type of content is often the lack of realism and purpose, especially regarding procedurally generated worlds or levels, aswell as outlier bugs, that can block the players progression, that can be hard to find since they could only show up in a few select seeds of the randomized world. This thesis examines the best use of procedural content generation for a game that features an endless world, as well as evaluating the final product against established definitions of the terms "realistic" and "purposeful", while also taking into account the prevention of outliers. The world is constructed as a series of interconnected sections that are generated incrementally as needed, with each section's landscape using Perlin-noise for its topography and A* pathfinding to build paths that ensure that the player can navigate through the randomized terrain and not get stuck. The topography is also modified by different techniques to generate a realistic coastline and feature different areas of interest within a section. The world was evaluated against the established definitions of realism and purposefulness by eight participants that gave the world a high score on all aspects of both definitions. To ensure the validity of the generated content, iterative evaluations were performed that showed no outlier bugs that prevented progressing through the world. The techniques used in this thesis can serve as a good starting ground for continued development of endless worlds.

Occupancy Regulated Extension (ORE) är en algoritm som används för att procedurellt generera banor till spel. Detta arbete undersökte användning av ORE för att skapa byggnader med tätt packade rum, specifikt från ett prestandaperspektiv. Detta genomfördes med treimplementationer av olika varianter av ORE. Dessa varianter är rutnät, svepande linje, och AABB. För små rum var rutnät snabbast, med svepande linje därefter och AABB den långsammaste. Med större rum var svepande linje i stort sett oförändrad och därmed snabbast, medans de andra två visade en ökning i genereringstiden. Rutnätsgeneratorn påverkades mest av rumstorlek, men inte tillräckligt för att vara långsammare än AABB. Resultatet var inte betydligt nog för att definitivt utse en implementation som bäst, eftersom skillnaderna var för små för att utesluta problem med implementationerna. Ytterligare arbete krävs för att uppnå ett mer exakt resultat. / <p>Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet.</p>

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Background. Development time and costs of video games are constantly rising andtools using Procedural Content Generation exist with the purpose of making thedevelopment process smoother.Objectives. This thesis’ aim is to evaluate the usability of an interactive bridgegenerator that uses Procedural Content Generation. Additionally the tool evaluatedhas two different methods that are also being evaluated.Methods. In order to answer complete the objectives, a tool has been created inUnreal Engine 4, and then evaluated through a user study on Blekinge Institute of Technology’s campus. Each participant of the user study got to test both themethods of the tool and answer questions regarding usability. The questionnaire used is the System Usability Scale. Results. The results of this study showed that the tool received an excellent usabilitygrade, and one of the methods received a higher grade than the other. Conclusions. The main conclusion is that the tool is usable but also that the studycould be done again using a different method while conducting the study. The toolas a whole could use some work to increase the usability further

Game development involves both traditional software activities combined with creative work. As a result, game design practices are characterized by an extensive process of iterative development and evaluation, where prototyping is a major component to test and evaluate the player experience. Content creation for the virtual world the players inhabit is one of the most time-consuming aspects of production. This experimental research study focuses on analyzing and formulating challenges and desired properties in a prototyping tool based on Procedural Content Generation to assist game designers in their early ideation process. To investigate this, a proof of concept was iteratively developed based on information gathered from interviews and evaluations with world designers during a conceptual and design study. The final user study assessed the tool’s functionalities and indicated its potential utility in enhancing the designers’ content exploration and risk management during pre-production activities. Key guidelines for the tool’s architecture can be distilled into: (1) A modular design approach supports balance between content controllability and creativity. (2) Design levels and feature representation should combine and range between Micro (specific) to Macro (high-level, abstract). The result revealed challenges in combining exploration of the design space with optimization and refinement of content. However, the thesis specifically concentrated on one specific type of content - city generation, to represent world design content generation. To fully understand the generalizable aspects different types of game content would need to be covered in further research. / Spelutveckling består av både traditionell programutveckling i kombination med kreativt arbete. Detta resulterar i att speldesign kännetecknas av en omfattande process av iterativ utveckling, där prototyper är en viktig komponent för att kunna testa och utvärdera spelupplevelsen. En av de mest tidskrävande aspekterna i produktionen är skapandet av innehåll till spelets virtuella värld. Denna experimentella forskningsstudie har fokuserat på att analysera och identifiera utmaningar och användbara egenskaper i ett prototypverktyg baserat på Procedurell Generering. Verktyget syftar till att assistera spelvärlds designers i deras initiala kreativa process för att generera, utveckla och kommunicera idéer. För att undersöka detta utvecklades en proof of concept iterativt baserat på den information som samlats in från intervjuer och utvärderingar med speldesigners, under en konceptuell och design fokuserad fas. Den slutliga användarstudien utvärderade verktygets funktionaliteter och användbarhet. Resultatet indikerade att ett prototypverktyg baserat på Procedurell Generering potentiellt kan förbättra både utforskandet av spelinnehåll och riskhantering. De viktigaste riktlinjerna för verktygets arkitektur kan sammanfattas av: (1) Användandet av moduler i designen stöder balansen mellan kontroll och kreativitet vid skapandet av innehåll. (2) Funktioner i verktyget gynnas av att kombinera och variera mellan Mikro (specifik representation) till Makro (abstrakt, övergripande representation) designnivåer. Studien identifierade ett antal utmaningar med att både kunna utforska material och optimera det. Viktigt att uppmärksamma är att denna studie enbart koncentrerade sig på en specifik typ av innehåll – stadsgenerering, vars syfte var att fungera som en representation av innehållsgenerering i spelvärldsdesign. För att mer omfattande kunna identifiera de generaliserbara aspekterna skulle flera olika typer av spelinnehåll behöva testas i ytterligare forskning

Terrain is a key aspect of a game to help immerse the player in the virtual environment. Producing such content can however be quite challenging for a designer since landscapes need to satisfy the game’s visual and playable needs. This paper presents a way to generate different terrain features through the control of software agents to help aid the design process. An artifact was developed which enabled the terrain features to be evaluated in combination with each other. While the features themselves performed well in isolation there would be a few issues depending on how these were integrated.

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