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Featured Article Mazes are a classic staple of adventure games… (more) News May 17, 2009 SDK released for Left4Dead. May 15, 2009 Article on single shard MMOs suggests importance of procedural generation. May 7, 2009 Final blog post out of a series of fourteen by Shamus Young documenting the development of a procedural city project, Pixel City. April 8, 2009 Article on FEIST, a 3D platformer with a 2D side-scrolling view, which contains "procedurally-generated content." April 7, 2009 Interview with Chris Delay on Subversion, a game with procedurally generated cityscapes, and other topics. Kotaku Article on 8BITARHERO, a game where levels are generated by the playing of it. Article on the history of Elite and similar space games. April 3, 2009 Article by Troy Goodfellow on the games Merchant Prince and Machiavelli, including a mention of how randomly generated maps complemented the game mechanics. April 1, 2009 Paper (PDF) by Gillian Smith on a rhythm-based method for procedurally generating levels for 2D platformers. March 31, 2009 Article on RockPaperShotgun about SYNTH. March 30, 2009 Article on RockPaperShotgun about Spelunky. March 23, 2009 Presentation by Eskil Skeenburg on the development of LOVE. March 16, 2009 Blog entry by Vic Davis on map generation in Armageddon Empires and Solium Infernum. March 10, 2009 Blog entry by Chevy Johnston covering procedural cave generation using Game Maker. March 8, 2009 Blog entry by Dave Mark on the case for procedural AI. March 3, 2009 Article by Kris Erickson on why procedural AI is the next big milestone in gaming. February 2, 2009 Give away of procedural generated content from CityEngine by AI Game Dev.net. January 20, 2009 Article by Ian Bogost coins term proceduralism to describe art style of particular games. January 14, 2009 Blog entry and Paper (PDF) by Julian Togelius, discussing automatic game rule creation using "artificial curiosity" to evaluate a ruleset. January 3, 2009 Blog entry by Dan Kline discusses procedural narrative in Left4Dead. Blog entry by Chris Delay discusses procedural building generation in Subversion. January 1, 2009 Article identifies procedural content as a top trend of 2008 in artificial intelligence. more news

Welcome to the Procedural Content Generation Wiki

The PCG Wiki is a central knowledge-base for everything related to Procedural Content Generation, as well as a detailed directory of games using Procedural Content Generation.

What is Procedural Content Generation?

Procedural content generation (PCG) is the programmatic generation of game content using a random or pseudo-random process that results in an unpredictable range of possible game play spaces. This wiki uses the term procedural content generation as opposed to procedural generation: the wikipedia definition of procedural generation includes using dynamic as opposed to precomputed light maps, and procedurally generated textures, which while procedural in scope, do not affect game play in a meaningful way. The concept of randomness is also key: procedural content generation should ensure that from a few parameters, a large number of possible types of content can be generated.

What should I do from here?

Have a look around the wiki. Most people visiting here seem to want to check out the lists of PCG games. But you may find you get more of an insight into procedural generation by downloading or trying online some of the freely available PCG software and having a play, or by looking at some of the code examples on the wiki or reading some of the articles this wiki links to. At the very early stages of this wiki, most of the pages on this wiki are link place holders to external websites. But if you feel you can contribute something, feel free to look at the ways to contribute and page editing and creation examples. Then sign up as a member and introduce yourself to the team.

PCG Games

Many games use procedural content generation to increase the length of game play, some of which are free to download and play. The most common category of PCG games is roguelikes, which have a long tradition of using procedural content generation techniques.

The following may help you find out more:

• List of All PCG Games
• Categorized Lists of PCG Games
• Major PCG Games

PCG Game development

If you have some ideas for a new game featuring procedural content generation techniques and would like to give development a go (or are already a seasoned developer) the PCG Wiki is here to help you. A complete list of articles is available, but here are some to get you started:

• Software using Procedural Content Generation
• Algorithms and Code Examples for Procedural Content Generation
• Events featuring Procedural Content Generation
• TIG Source Procedural Content Generation Competition
• The Death of the Level Designer
• Articles about making a PCG game

Contribute

If you'd like to contribute to the PCG Wiki directly, simply create an account, log in and join the site using the menus near the top of the page. Feel very free to edit! We especially need more information added to the games pages and the lists - if you're a developer, consider updating your game's page, and making sure that it (and you) are included in the relevant lists. You can request an article at the forums. You'll also find the todo list, examples and bugs-and-quirks pages useful to introduce yourself to the wiki format and this wiki's way of doing things.

License

All content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.