Procedural Generation of Video Game Cities for Specific Video Game Genres Using WaveFunctionCollapse (WFC)

Abstract

Virtual cities as background scenarios can be used for many 3D video game genres like action. However, the procedural generation of virtual cities for specific video game genres is an ongoing research problem. In this paper, we seek to establish a grounding for future work into city generation for specific game genres by exploring how game designers approach existing generation tool-sets. Firstly, we look at the video game city Skara Brae from the partybased role-playing game The Bard's Tale and try to replicate it using the Wave Function Collapse (WFC) approach to procedural generation. We show in two experimental conditions which parameters for WFC are suitable for replicating the city. Secondly, a pilot user study with eight users shows how they approach creating different video game cities after they preselect a video game genre. The users' video game level ideas are then discussed, and different output levels are generated using WFC.

Automatic Generation of Game Levels Based on Controllable Wave Function Collapse Algorithm

“…The WFC algorithm of the overlapping model has remarkable advantages when used as a texture generator but is not suitable when generating game levels. Werner Gaisbauer et al tried to generate a virtual city under a specific game theme by adjusting the parameters used in the basic WFC algorithm [19]. They only tried to find the best parameters for the city generation in a specific game, but make no algorithm-level improvements.…”