| Ultravolt said: This is something that's been annoying me for quite some time, ever since realizing that one particular game that intrigued me was using RANDOM LEVEL GENERATION. I personally find it to be a somewhat lazy way of doing level design. It just lacks that lovingly handcrafted feeling. Don't get me wrong, I know the hard work it takes to program such a thing, but I can't help but feel like it's just a lazy way of designing a level. You're letting the code do it all for you! Referring back to the first sentence, sometimes I'll find a cool looking indie game only to find out it's using random level generation. For example, when I first saw of We Happy Few, it really intrigued me. It looked a lot like Bioshock style-wise, which is a game I really like. Then I learned something that somewhat changed my view of the game FOREVER... its levels were... randomly generated (at least a portion of them). Unfortunately, it was enough to turn me off. this all sounds way too dramatic, I know, but that's just one man's opinion. Lately, I've been seeing more and more otherwise great looking indie games go down this road, and in my opinion, it's quite unfortunate. What's your take? |
Depends on the game. But even for games that need more structure, I think guided random level generation might make a lot of sense for the developing team to get in the personal touces while still take a lot of work from their shoulders. So generate the base landscape, and then change it based on what is needed for the game.
