Reflection 4​

Levels in many games, especially roguelike games, are randomly generated. In this way, the
game becomes more replayable. Actually, a good generated level is not totally random and lets
computer do the design. I totally agree with what Antti said in his lecture that "Procedural levels
don’t eliminate the need for level design skills. Good procedural systems often have a lot of
hand-made content as well. " ​
Making a randomly generated level​
Spelunky is a great example of balancing the authored and random content. Each level in
Spelunky is divided into 16 rooms. And each room is randomly given a template. The designer,
Derek Yu, hand crafted lots of room templates. Maybe from the players' view, a block is the
smallest unit and every block is just randomly generated by computer. But a hand-made room,
which is the combination of many different types of blocks, is the actual smallest unit. ​

Players can't learn anything if the level is purely random. The game is not fun if players can't
enhance their skills from the previous game experience. So, there should be some consistent
rules in the game. For example, in Spelunky, gems and crates are more likely to appear in spaces
surrounded by walls. The game encourages you to learn underlying mechanics and makes you
read situations every time. ​
It's not an easy thing to design the world generated rules. And I like the sentence Antti said, "
procedural content is a game design choice, not a game production choice." ​
References​
How (and Why) Spelunky Makes its Own Levels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqk5Zf0tw3
o&t=30s​