Wolf-haunted wastelands of frigid tundra, Veiling lost cities sunken and frozen into the ice ... Mist-wreathed mountains teeming with orcs, Goblins, demons and dwarven underworlds ... Burning battlefields, reigned over By imperious and ancient dragons ... Steaming jungles, filled with headhunters And savage apes, guardians to ancient temples Filled with accursed gold ... These are the realms of old school fantasy role-playing, the world of your imagination. This world is a dark and wondrous place, an endless milieu teeming with danger, intrigue, exotic wonders, epic quests, and the bold heroes and villains who dare to conquer all. And you, as the Game Master, are tasked with creating those kingdoms from scratch. It is your mission to forge an entire alternate universe filled with infinite possibilities, a world which your friends and fellow role-players can explore for years to come. But how do you create a world? How do you even begin? The CASTLE OLDSKULL GAME WORLD GENERATOR is the only guide specifically and solely designed to assist you in creating an entire old school fantasy world. This is no "It is time for you to take the world into your own hands, and no one but you can decide what to include" copout dodge which demands everything of you and gives you nothing. This is a 430+ page step-by-step guide, from blank hex paper to the fully-realized game world, which explains the entire process to you in granular detail. Even better, this book is filled with dozens of helpful graphics which illustrate the entire mapping process. If you love lost worlds like Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom and Pellucidar, Gary Gygax's Flanaess, Robert E. Howard's Cimmeria and Hyboria, Fritz Leiber's Nehwon, H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, Michael Moorcock's Melnibone and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, then this is the book for you! Highlights include: world conception, mapping, scale, landforms, terrain, kingdoms and fiefs, wilderness design, feudal realms and foreign equivalents, city and wilderness names, treasures and resources, hierarchies of nobility, ruler classes and levels, realm alignment, campaign-tailored population formulae, demi-human enclaves, humanoid tribes, starting area development, dragon lair placement, dungeon placement and much more. Everything you need to turn your ideas into a solid, coherent and adventure-filled world is right here at your fingertips. The GAME WORLD GENERATOR is brought to you by Kent David Kelly of Wonderland Imprints, a role-player and Game Master with over 30 years of play experience. Best of all, if there are any other materials you would like to see relating to world or dungeon design, feel free to contact the author. I create the supplements that Game Masters want. Many more CASTLE OLDSKULL supplements are being prepared specifically to support the players, initiates and Game Masters of the Old School Revival (OSR). This book is your gateway to the realms of sword and sorcery. Join us for the adventure! (A complete reference work designed to supplement existing pen-and-paper Fantasy Role-Playing Games. 3 parts, over 100 section topics, 42,000 words, over 430 pages; organized via a fully hyperlinked table of contents. Just one of the proud creations available now from Wonderland Imprints - Only the Finest Works of Fantasy.)

Making a game can be an intensive process, and if not planned accurately can easily run over budget. The use of procedural generation in game design can help with the intricate and multifarious aspects of game development; thus facilitating cost reduction. This form of development enables games to create their play areas, objects and stories based on a set of rules, rather than relying on the developer to handcraft each element individually. Readers will learn to create randomized maps, weave accidental plotlines, and manage complex systems that are prone to unpredictable behavior. Tanya Short’s and Tarn Adams’ Procedural Generation in Game Design offers a wide collection of chapters from various experts that cover the implementation and enactment of procedural generation in games. Designers from a variety of studios provide concrete examples from their games to illustrate the many facets of this emerging sub-discipline. Key Features: Introduces the differences between static/traditional game design and procedural game design Demonstrates how to solve or avoid common problems with procedural game design in a variety of concrete ways Includes industry leaders’ experiences and lessons from award-winning games World’s finest guide for how to begin thinking about procedural design

This book presents the most up-to-date coverage of procedural content generation (PCG) for games, specifically the procedural generation of levels, landscapes, items, rules, quests, or other types of content. Each chapter explains an algorithm type or domain, including fractal methods, grammar-based methods, search-based and evolutionary methods, constraint-based methods, and narrative, terrain, and dungeon generation. The authors are active academic researchers and game developers, and the book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students of courses on games and creativity; game developers who want to learn new methods for content generation; and researchers in related areas of artificial intelligence and computational intelligence.

A comprehensive guide and random generator for fantasy world-building.

The rich programme of ICIDS 2009, comprising invited talks, technical pres- tations and posters, demonstrations, and co-located post-conference workshops clearly underscores the event’s status as premier international meeting in the domain. It thereby con?rms the decision taken by the Constituting Committee of the conference series to take the step forward: out of the national cocoons of its precursors, ICVS and TIDSE, and towards an itinerant platform re?ecting its global constituency. This move re?ects the desire and the will to take on the challenge to stay on the lookout, critically re?ect upon and integrate views and ideas,?ndingsandexperiences,andtopromoteinterdisciplinaryexchange,while ensuring overall coherence and maintaining a sense of direction. This is a signi?cant enterprise: The challenges sought are multifarious and must be addressed consistently at all levels. The desire to involve all research communitiesandstakeholdersmustbematchedbyacknowledgingthedi?erences in established practises and by providing suitable means of guidance and int- duction, exposition and direct interaction at the event itself and of lasting (and increasingly:living) documentation, of which the present proceedings are but an important part.

Harness the power of procedural content generation to design unique games with Unity About This Book Learn the basics of PCG development Develop a 2D game from start to finish Explore all the different ways PCG can be applied in games Who This Book Is For This book is for Unity game developers, especially those who work on indie games. You should be familiar with Unity and C# scripting but you'll be able to jump in and start learning PCG straightaway. What You Will Learn Understand the theory of Procedural Content Generation Learn the uses of Pseudo Random Numbers Create reusable algorithm designs for PCG Evaluate the data structures for PCG Develop smaller games with larger amounts of content Generate content instead of spending time designing every minute detail Learn when and how to add PCG to your game Learn the fundamental techniques of PCG In Detail Procedural Content Generation is a process by which game content is developed using computer algorithms, rather than through the manual efforts of game developers. This book teaches readers how to develop algorithms for procedural generation that they can use in their own games. These concepts are put into practice using C# and Unity is used as the game development engine. This book provides the fundamentals of learning and continued learning using PCG. You'll discover the theory of PCG and the mighty Pseudo Random Number Generator. Random numbers such as die rolls and card drafting provide the chance factor that makes games fun and supplies spontaneity. This book also takes you through the full development of a 2D game. Starting with level generation, you'll learn how PCG can make the game environment for you. You'll move into item generation and learn the different techniques to procedurally create game items. Thereafter, you'll be guided through the more abstract PCG areas such as scaling difficulty to the player and even generating music! The book helps you set up systems within your games where algorithms create computationally generated levels, art assets, quests, stories, characters, and weapons; these can substantially reduce the burden of manually creating every aspect of the game. Finally, you'll get to try out your new PCG skills on 3D terrain generation. Style and approach An easy-to-follow, project-based guide that will let you build a complete game by the end of the book using PCG.

The sequel to the Classic Dungeon Design Guide is here ... Have you read every dungeon design book out there, but you're still hungry for great ideas to amaze your players? Would you like to possess the tools to generate countless millions of randomized results for bizarre rooms and shrines, dungeon doors, magical laboratories, skeletons, Lovecraftian abominations, and torture chambers? Then this is the book for you. This massive tome is the direct sequel to Wonderland Imprints' Gold Medal Best Seller, CDDG1: THE CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE. Where Book 1 was a basic inspirational tome filled with thousands of ideas, Book II: Dungeon Mastery Design Tables is an advanced nuts-and-bolts guide that provides you with hundreds of pages of tables which you can use to create an infinite number of dungeon rooms, monster lairs, thematic levels and endless details such as barracks, caves, chests, corpses, fountains, prisoner cells, quarters, shrines, and magical gateways. You can even use this book's treasure trove of systems to create millions of deities, slime monsters, prisoner NPCs, and unique NPC villains and prisoners, using nearly 1,000 different experience level titles and other tools that intersect with DDE1, DUNGEON DELVER ENHANCER. Book One was only the beginning, the entry work to a series. This is one of the largest and most extensive dungeon design books in existence, with features branching out from CDDG1 including: data for on-the-spot creation of altars, barracks, caves, containers, corpses, doors, dungeon dressing, fountains, fungi, galleries, hideouts, laboratories, magical gateways, prisoners, quarters, stairways, torture chambers, unusual rooms, and those ever-baffling magical "unclassifiable chambers" which no one can fully comprehend. It's all here, the massive set of tables I have used for years to create new mega-dungeons for the Castle Oldskull OSR campaign. I have refined and expanded them over many months of writing, and now I offer them to you. So what are you waiting for? This book is the perfect companion for THE CLASSIC DUNGEON DESIGN GUIDE, and has been specially designed to serve both as a learning grimoire and as a tabletop go-to book for design and for sandbox play. After all, if you're going to dare to delve into the netherworld, you should probably take not just a lantern and an elvish sword of great antiquity; you should also carry the ultimate guidebook to help you from getting lost along the way ... Another classic Fantasy Role-Playing Game Supplement from Wonderland Imprints, Only the Finest Works of Fantasy.

Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow's enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don't yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation. Co-created by 470 "Business Model Canvas" practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization. It explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context. You will learn how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model--or analyze and renovate an old one. Along the way, you'll understand at a much deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and your core value proposition. Business Model Generation features practical innovation techniques used today by leading consultants and companies worldwide, including 3M, Ericsson, Capgemini, Deloitte, and others. Designed for doers, it is for those ready to abandon outmoded thinking and embrace new models of value creation: for executives, consultants, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all organizations. If you're ready to change the rules, you belong to "the business model generation!"

Learn to create authentic fantasy maps step-by-step! Orcs prepare for battle against high Elves, Dwarves retreat to the mountains and men march to the sea to reclaim crumbling fortresses. Fortunes are decided. Kingdoms are lost. Entire worlds are created. This book will teach you to bring your fictional realm to life with simple step-by-step instructions on how to draw authentic fantasy maps. Set the stage for adventure by illustrating domains, castles and battle lines, mountains, forests and sea monsters! Learn to create completely unique and fully functional RPG maps time and time again on which your world can unfold. All the skills necessary to create awe-inspiring maps are covered! • Landscapes. Add depth, balance and plausibility with rocky coastlines, towering mountains, dark forests and rolling plains. • Iconography. Mark important places--towns and cities, fortresses and bridges--with symbolic iconography for easy-to-understand maps. • Typography. Learn how to place readable text and the basics of decorative script. Bonus instruction teaches you to create fonts for Orcs, Elves, Vikings and dragons. • Heraldry and shield design. Depict cultural and political boundaries with shields and colors. • Advanced cartography. Includes how to draw landmarks, country boundaries and political lines. Build roads to connect merchants and troops, troll cairns and dragon lairs. And complete your maps with creative backgrounds, elaborate compasses and thematic legends. 30+ step-by-step demonstrations illustrate how to construct an entire fantasy world map from start to finish--both digitally and by hand!

This edited collection of chapters concerns the evolving discipline of procedural storytelling in video games. Games are an interactive medium, and this interplay between author, player and machine provides new and exciting ways to create and tell stories. In each essay, practitioners of this artform demonstrate how traditional storytelling tools such as characterization, world-building, theme, momentum and atmosphere can be adapted to full effect, using specific examples from their games. The reader will learn to construct narrative systems, write procedural dialog, and generate compelling characters with unique personalities and backstories. Key Features Introduces the differences between static/traditional game design and procedural game design Demonstrates how to solve or avoid common problems with procedural game design in a variety of concrete ways World’s finest guide for how to begin thinking about procedural design