grep ‐‐week 46

The theme of this week’s grep is: catching up.

Procedural Generation, and the problem of Player Perception
@gamasutra
This is really more about UX than procgen, but he’s trying to get players to explore his procedurally generated spaces in a roguelike way (trial an error, experimentation) and it’s not working.  The author’s conclusion is a bit sad, in the he thinks he can no longer put trust in his players and should instead cater to a lower common denominator, but it seems to me like he should just focus on improving his UX design.

Making randomness transparent in Tharsis
@gamasutra
Following up on player perception of randomness, this is a repost of an article from earlier in the year about the excellent RNG game Tharsis.  The developers discover that by showing their random number generator as dice literally being thrown and physically simulated (as opposed to a hidden black box) players have an easier time accepting the results.

Dissection of Randomness in Games
@gamasutra
A nice overview of the various ways that RNG can be incorporated into game design.

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead: A roguelike you could play for the rest of your life
@rockpapershotgun
How have I never heard of this game?

Procedural island generator
@gamedev.net
Pretty floating islands.