How important are generative /procedural systems as ‘active’ gameplay elements rather than pre-production content creation tools. It’s also possible to guide procedural processes with enough artistry that they can work well together, though it’s an ongoing process in general, as far as quality goes. If you have a method to make something procedurally, it might as well be the method you go with *unless* the lack of an artist’s touch has enough of a negative aesthetic impact to outweigh the positives (using the word artist broadly - level designers, writers, etc. It can be used to fill in less important gaps quickly and thereby expand the overall scope of a project. Even if you are in a situation where you’d prefer to have stuff hand-made, using procedural generation can reduce costs. Procedural generation can make a game more replayable and add to the variety even within a single play (and it makes it more playable for the developers!). If the advancement of storage, memory and bandwidth has eliminated some of the historical reasons for using procedural technology what do you see as its key advantages today? I suppose it’s important donation-wise that people know I put a lot of work into the guts of the project, but that won’t have so much influence as long as they enjoy the game. That said, it’s cool to try to understand things as well - people approach the game from different directions. I think it’s better in a way if the players don’t focus on the science behind the processes, because the main idea is to become immersed in the game and not think so much about the nuts and bolts. You can adjust things, but eventually good enough is good enough and then you have your final output with that character. In world generation, for example, a mid-point displacement algorithm gives you horizontal and vertical artifacts, which can be mitigated by the diamond-square algorithm, and basic perlin noise looks fluffy and rounded. You can control it with a lot of work, but oftentimes that isn’t even desirable. The algorithms you choose impact the outcome. How much do you feel that the mathematical basis of Dwarf Fortress’ world-building influences the aesthetics of your game? (and is it at all important for you that players realise the ‘science’ behind these game design processes) The following interview was carried out with him on the 1st July 2010. He earns a small wage from player support and is dedicated to the long term development of the project, adding new simulation elements with each build. Tarn Adams is the sole programmer for the project, working alongside his brother (who concentrates on the narrative and descriptive details).

This range of possible utility demonstrates the complexity of the game world and the near ‘turing complete’ nature of Dwarf Fortresses simulation. In addition to such autonomous functions the in-world mechanical tools are so modular and flexible that players have built functioning calculators and simple computing systems with them. To this end, the depth of simulation in Dwarf Fortress is extensive, ranging from narrative and historical texts constructed in realtime to procedures that model animal migration and npcs emotional states. Both procedural world building and realtime emergent behaviour are core elements of the game itself. Under the blocky ASCII interface lies one of the most complex simulation systems in modern games. However, this initial visual impression belies the internal complexity of the project. The graphical interface is a pimitive mix of ASCII art and DOS style menus, harking back to nethack and ZZT. Dwarf Fortress is a emergent world sim built on the heritage of rogue-likes.

Although this interview should really be accompanied by a little more contextual content (as a case study) Tarn Adams was such an eloquent respondent that the interview itself covers most of the points I wanted to address.

Dwarf fortress ascii world map