Procedural Content Generation in Games

A textbook and an overview of current research

Noor Shaker, Julian Togelius, and Mark J. Nelson

Preface
1 Introduction Julian Togelius, Noor Shaker, Mark J. Nelson
2 The search-based approach Julian Togelius and Noor Shaker
3 Constructive generation methods for dungeons and levels Noor Shaker, Antonios Liapis, Julian Togelius, Ricardo Lopes and Rafael Bidarra
4 Fractals, noise and agents with applications to landscapes and textures Noor Shaker, Julian Togelius and Mark J. Nelson
5 Grammars and L-systems with applications to vegetation and levels Julian Togelius, Noor Shaker and Joris Dormans
6 Rules and mechanics Mark J. Nelson, Julian Togelius, Cameron Browne and Michael Cook
7 Planning with applications to quests and story Yun-Gyung Cheong, Mark O. Riedl, Byung-Chull Bae and Mark J. Nelson
8 ASP with applications to mazes and levels Mark J. Nelson and Adam M. Smith
9 Representations for search-based methods Dan Ashlock, Sebastian Risi and Julian Togelius
10 The experience-driven perspective Noor Shaker, Julian Togelius and Georgios N. Yannakakis
11 Mixed-initiative content creation Antonios Liapis, Gillian Smith, and Noor Shaker
12 Evaluating content generators Noor Shaker, Gillian Smith and Georgios N. Yannakakis
A Game-designer interviews Andrew Doull, Ed Key, Michael Toy, Richard Evans, and Tarn Adams

Published as:

Initial drafts of the chapters were posted online on this website in 2013, as they were written. They went through a number of revisions in 2013–2016; the PDFs above are the final authors' versions as of 2016. This version was published in essentially the same form (apart from some publisher branding) by Springer in 2016. Our publication agreement allowed us to keep the author-version PDFs online.

Paper copies at: Springer, Amazon, your library, etc.

Supplementary material:

BibTeX:

@book{pcgbook,
  author={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  title={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4}
}
Per-chapter BibTeX
@incollection{pcgbook:ch01,
  author={Togelius, Julian and Shaker, Noor and Nelson, Mark J.},
  title={Introduction},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={1--15},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_1}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch02,
  author={Togelius, Julian and Shaker, Noor},
  title={The search-based approach},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={17--30},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_2}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch03,
  author={Shaker, Noor and Liapis, Antonios and Togelius, Julian and Lopes, Ricardo and Bidarra, Rafael},
  title={Constructive generation methods for dungeons and levels},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={31--55},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_3}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch04,
  author={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  title={Fractals, noise and agents with applications to landscapes},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={57--72},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_4}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch05,
  author={Togelius, Julian and Shaker, Noor and Dormans, Joris},
  title={Grammars and {L}-systems with applications to vegetation and levels},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={73--98},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_5}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch06,
  author={Nelson, Mark J. and Togelius, Julian and Browne, Cameron and Cook, Michael},
  title={Rules and mechanics},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={99--121},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_6}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch07,
  author={Cheong, Yun-Gyung and Riedl, Mark O. and Bae, Byung-Chull and Nelson, Mark J.},
  title={Planning with applications to quests and story},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={123--141},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_7}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch08,
  author={Nelson, Mark J. and Smith, Adam M.},
  title={{ASP} with applications to mazes and levels},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={143--157},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_8}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch09,
  author={Ashlock, Dan and Risi, Sebastian and Togelius, Julian},
  title={Representations for search-based methods},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={159--179},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_9}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch10,
  author={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Yannakakis, Georgios N.},
  title={The experience-driven perspective},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={181--194},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_10}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch11,
  author={Liapis, Antonios and Smith, Gillian and Shaker, Noor},
  title={Mixed-initiative content creation},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={195--214},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_11}
}

@incollection{pcgbook:ch12,
  author={Shaker, Noor and Smith, Gillian and Yannakakis, Georgios N.},
  title={Evaluating content generators},
  booktitle={Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research},
  editor={Shaker, Noor and Togelius, Julian and Nelson, Mark J.},
  pages={215--224},
  publisher={Springer},
  year={2016},
  doi={10.1007/978-3-319-42716-4_12}
}