Recently I tried to introduce the readers of Der Standard to the wonders of procedural generation with this article, but VGT-colleague Christof Zurschmitten plunged the further depths of this topic in last year's article for games publication GameStar. During his extensive research, he conducted a series of fascinating, in-depth interviews with a few notable game designers on procedural generation in games today. In this interview, the first of a series of diminuitively nicknamed "footnotes", Christof talked to Arcen Games' Chris Park. Warning: long read ahead.
Your first game, AI War, as well as both of the Valley Games had a strong emphasis on procedural generation, so much so that I figure it has become a part of the image of Arcen. My first question would thus be: How did you get to focus on procedural generation? Was it because you were a programmer interested in the challenge that came with it or was it more a means towards an end for you?
I think that in my particular case, I didn’t become a game developer. I was already a professional programmer and game development was a lifelong hobby of mine. But I never thought that was going to become a career and so I’m a little bit of an odd one, in terms of how I started out with things. All that said, my reasoning for using procedural generation wasn’t motivated by anything market-related or trying to accomplish anything for other people. It was all focused on what I wanted as a player for myself.