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Post news Report RSS Dev Diary Procedural Generation 2.0. Also, GREENLIT!

A new look at the current Procedural Level generation for Rebirth, showing you our progress and a few runthrough examples of a procedurally generated level. In addition, Rebirth has been Greenlit by Steam!

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So it's been far too long since an update, but I promise there are good reasons.

Like for example did I mention that we have been GREENLIT by Steam? No? Oh sorry.

Greenlit!

Much <3 to everyone who voted for us and believes in the project. We really are working hard to make Rebirth the game you all believe it will be, and since we're doing it all in our spare time, what really keeps us going every day is the motivation you give us through all your amazing support. Trust me, your feedback does not go unnoticed! We're extremely proud to be among the small group of games approved by Steam and we're super stoked to be able to release Rebirth when it's done to as many distribution platforms as possible!

The second little update I have for you today is actually the reason for this post. Our 2nd development diary is up. It details what I call "Procedural Level Generation 2.0" which is a huge improvement over what was shown in the first dev diary. This is the technology that will power some of the levels in the game, as well as allow us to create dynamic levels that change each time you play.

I want you to watch it. Watch it now! Think of it as a long overdue reward for your awesome support!

Oh and maybe you guys will catch a glimpse of something... odd... in it?

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HDarkseer™
HDarkseer™

I like the Procedural Generation but I don't think it is the way to go for a game like this. When it generates the world it is not always the same and it is really nice don't get me wrong, but I think it is much better for you to design the whole world. One example for a whole world designed is The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and that game is 10 square miles. I think that handcrafting the game space is much better than randomly generating environments.

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Rico21745 Author
Rico21745

It can be for certain games, however for us, I'm going for as much procedural content as possible for a few reasons:

1) Funding & Manpower: Handcrafting huge amounts of levels takes considerable time and thus money to do since every single level needs to be done by an artist.

2) Content can get static and boring: Play through the game once and the area is not new or as fun to explore as the first time. With procedural generation sprinkled into static environments, we can have areas that keep surprising you every time.

3) Specially for a horror game, static content means you get no replay value and the scares get watered down after the first time you experience them.

Was there something in particular about what you saw in the video that you felt would be nicer with a static world? Definitely want to get feedback on that sort of thing

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Zombiestubble
Zombiestubble

If you want the game to tell a story just have tiles within times(Inception!) that are coordinated with other tiles that exist in other buildings. Quite hard to do, but with enough tiles, there could be enough stories to keep the player occupied for a good duration of the generated map.

Also, how long is the average playtime life expectancy of a map? Like 20 hours or so? How many hours can you spend on an average map until it gets "boring"?

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Rico21745 Author
Rico21745

A lot of the work on the game is in disparate pieces atm so there's no "play through" just yet to calculate this sort of thing. But the idea is to have as much content as possible within our means. I don't want this to be an indie game that takes you 2 hours to beat and then you're done. I want this to be a game you experience for days or even weeks of gameplay if possible, and maybe come back for more.

I'm huge on replay value for the games I enjoy, so you can expect that to show in Rebirth for sure as its one of the core design philosophies.

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