grep ‐‐week 43

The theme of this week’s grep is: phoning it in.

Sid Meier’s Psychology of Game Design
@GDCvault
Lots of great stuff in this video, but most relevant here is the part about the psychology of random number generators:

• If a player has 2:1 odds of winning, and they lose, that’s ok.
• If a player has 2:1 odds of winning, and they lose twice in a row, the game is cheating.
• If a player has 20:10 odds odds of winning, and they lose, the game is cheating.
• If a player has 5:1 odds of winning, and they lose, the game is cheating.

Bending Unity to Carry Spherical Voxel Planets in Planet Nomads
@gamasutra
A technical deep dive into some very interesting procgen techniques implemented in Unity.

The code of No Man’s Sky
@3dgamedevblog
An article about No Man’s Sky that is actually positive and interesting, rather than trying to hold it up as an example of everything that’s wrong with indie games. Huzzah.

Fun with naming roguelikes
@rockpapershotgun
“Your game is a Roguelikelikelike.”

Fun with procedural tree generation
@rockpapershotgun
Pretty trees.