Experimental Development: Writing with a Text Generator

Further tweaks to the generator I created a ‘printText’ function which would run through the generator for as many times as Jacky had set the levelCount to (6 at the time of writing, plus one ‘end’ scene), and dump the generated text into an empty game object. I could then, with a few clicks, export …

Experimental Development: Building a Text Generator

Input language Taking my cue from the construction of both Perchance and Tracery, I chose to use the following symbols the signify variables and options: [variable] and {option|option}. A [variable] might represent a call to another structure, or a randomly chosen item from a list. An {option|option} represents an either/or choice – the generator will …

Experimental Development: Planning a Text Generator

As per last devlog, I started by answering some of Kate Compton’s questions for defining a generator’s ideal output, its properties and its constraints. What am I trying to make? I would like my generator to create an epistolary horror story – told through the medium of a developer commentary – about developing a 90s …

Experimental Development Project: First Steps

Identifying a Project In my experimental mini-devs I had mostly focused on procedural text generation, researching VR, and messing about with shaders. I enjoyed working on procedural text, so was keen to push that further, but didn’t have a clear starting point for what I wanted to create. Luckily, Jacky shared the beginnings of his …

Experimental Development: Case Study (Denizens of the Dying World)

Denizens of the Dying World (abbreviated from now on to DDW), by Brian Yaksha, is a small character generator, ostensibly designed for the dark TTRPG system ‘Mork Borg.’ Brian is a game designer who both writes his own games and works on others’, as well as blogging at https://www.rakehellzine.com/. DDW is written using Perchance, and …