Dwarf Fortress
GameBy Bay 12 Games
Documents about Dwarf Fortress
Game Developers Conference26 min
Best Practices for Procedural Narrative Generation
Procedural narrative generation serves as a bridge between structured, authored storytelling and emergent, simulation-based gameplay.
- Procedural narrative generation bridges the gap between authored storytelling and emergent gameplay by using logical modeling to represent characters, relationships, and world states as formal data.
- The simulation-centric approach, exemplified by Dwarf Fortress, prioritizes spontaneity by defining character personalities and interaction rules that drive behavior within a simulated environment.
- The plot-centric approach, utilized in games like Façade, employs a story mediator to monitor player actions and enforce specific narrative beats to maintain a designer's intended dramatic structure.
Game Developers ConferenceMay 2017
Game Developers Conference32 min
Made Out Of Meat: Health Systems In Video Games
Video games frequently rely on abstract hit-point systems that reduce characters to indestructible vessels, effectively ignoring the nuances of human fragility.
- Game health systems can be categorized into three tiers: abstraction (a single HP bar), simplification (tracking damage to specific body parts, as seen in the roguelike 'Ivan'), and simulation (integrating physical damage into the laws of the game world).
- Moving beyond basic HP bars to limb-based damage systems introduces meaningful, lasting consequences that force players to adapt their playstyle, such as losing an arm to prevent off-hand equipment usage or losing legs to alter movement mechanics.
- The human physical experience is defined by the interplay of fragility, resilience, and the ability to adapt; games that incorporate these elements create more compelling challenges than those relying on 'Superman-style' invulnerability.
Game Developers ConferenceOct 2016