Modern Trends in the Automatic Generation of Content for Video Games

Abstract

Attractive and realistic content has always played a crucial
role in the penetration and popularity of digital games, virtual
environments, and other multimedia applications. Procedural content
generation enables the automatization of production of any type of game
content including not only landscapes and narratives but also game
mechanics and generation of whole games. The article offers a
comparative analysis of the approaches to automatic generation of
content for video games proposed in last five years. It suggests a new
typology of the use of procedurally generated game content comprising of
categories structured in three groups: content nature, generation process,
and game dependence. Together with two other taxonomies – one of
content type and the other of methods for content generation – this
typology is used for comparing and discussing some specific approaches to
procedural content generation in three promising research directions
based on applying personalization and adaptation, descriptive languages,
and semantic specifications.