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Spelunky Level Generator Lessons (2013)

65 points by ecliptik 7y ago

sillysaurusx 7y ago
I wish I could do more than leave a comment that sounds like a complaint, but in case it’s helpful: I get a black screen on iOS. I might dig into the reason why it’s failing when I get home. Whatever its doing should at least render on mobile without extra dev effort. Curious...
- taneq 7y ago
  Works ok for me, maybe it was a load issue? Edit: Oh, the live demo doesn’t work. I thought you meant the whole page was black, which sadly is apparently an option these days.
guu 7y ago
This is pretty cool. It shows you how spelunky procedurally generates levels and ensures they can be completed by the player. Unfortunately, it only works in Chrome.
predakanga 7y ago
I came across a video yesterday about how Dead Cells uses a similar generation method (random composition of pre-designed tiles), as well as some other interesting UX hacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5NwboDDhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5NwboDDhk
- babuskov 7y ago
  I love Dead Cells as a game (slick combat, great graphics and atmosphere, etc.), but it's levels are one of the weak design points IMHO. They are nowhere near as fun and interesting as Spelunky's. Dead Cells levels are just simple tree-like structure that branch out and have a bunch of random rooms placed alongside the branch. It even has errors where you get two checkpoints so close, they can fit on one screen. The only exception is level 5 where you have teleport doors that add some interconnections, but the rest of the game levels are meh. You start going down a side path and you know it's a dead-end every single time.
TJSomething 7y ago
As a few other people and the page noted, it only works in Chrome. For Firefox, it fails when it tries to use chrome.storage. That doesn't even work in Chrome, as it's an API that can only be accessed by extensions. However, in Chrome, the chrome object is defined, so accessing chrome.storage just returns undefined instead of throwing. It's kind of weird that it's using that when it could just use localStorage.
dang 7y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6866310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6866310
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
The depths of Spelunky hacking go super deep. See here for a lot more: http://sashavol.com/frozlunky/ http://sashavol.com/frozlunky/
ArtWomb 7y ago
Looks like Derek Yu is hard at work on Spelunky 2, though no release data yet Spelunky is like the Gold Standard of ProcGen in GameDev. It just works. Trying to apply the same techniques to Super Mario Bros might not. "Instant Death" and randomized exploration rewards seem to be key. This is a game that is probably impossible for an AI to master http://pcg.wikidot.com/pcg-games:spelunky http://pcg.wikidot.com/pcg-games:spelunky OpenAI also recently released a ProcGen Benchmark that conceivably is used to explore generalizability in learning agents. A few of the modes look like they were Spelunky-inspired ;) https://openai.com/blog/procgen-benchmark/ https://openai.com/blog/procgen-benchmark/
- chongli 7y ago
  "Instant Death" and randomized exploration rewards seem to be key. Usually called permanent death or permadeath. These two happen to be the defining traits of the Roguelike genre. They’re the two highest value factors of the Berlin Interpretation [1]. [1] http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretat... Note that all of the other factors have been violated by one Roguelike or another, so I would take them with a grain of salt.
b0rsuk 7y ago
If you like Spelunky, check out Catacomb Kids. It's similar in many ways, but has fundamental differences such as no terrain destruction (by design). Check out youtube videos to see if it's for you. It's harder than Spelunky. Caution: it's having trouble getting out of Early Access. Only two stages are complete, third is on the way and a patch comes out every month or two.

65 points by ecliptik 7y ago

I wish I could do more than leave a comment that sounds like a complaint, but in case it’s helpful: I get a black screen on iOS. I might dig into the reason why it’s failing when I get home. Whatever its doing should at least render on mobile without extra dev effort. Curious...

taneq 7y ago
Works ok for me, maybe it was a load issue? Edit: Oh, the live demo doesn’t work. I thought you meant the whole page was black, which sadly is apparently an option these days.

guu 7y ago

This is pretty cool. It shows you how spelunky procedurally generates levels and ensures they can be completed by the player. Unfortunately, it only works in Chrome.

predakanga 7y ago

I came across a video yesterday about how Dead Cells uses a similar generation method (random composition of pre-designed tiles), as well as some other interesting UX hacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5NwboDDhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5NwboDDhk

babuskov 7y ago
I love Dead Cells as a game (slick combat, great graphics and atmosphere, etc.), but it's levels are one of the weak design points IMHO. They are nowhere near as fun and interesting as Spelunky's. Dead Cells levels are just simple tree-like structure that branch out and have a bunch of random rooms placed alongside the branch. It even has errors where you get two checkpoints so close, they can fit on one screen. The only exception is level 5 where you have teleport doors that add some interconnections, but the rest of the game levels are meh. You start going down a side path and you know it's a dead-end every single time.

TJSomething 7y ago

As a few other people and the page noted, it only works in Chrome. For Firefox, it fails when it tries to use chrome.storage. That doesn't even work in Chrome, as it's an API that can only be accessed by extensions. However, in Chrome, the chrome object is defined, so accessing chrome.storage just returns undefined instead of throwing. It's kind of weird that it's using that when it could just use localStorage.

dang 7y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6866310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6866310

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

The depths of Spelunky hacking go super deep. See here for a lot more: http://sashavol.com/frozlunky/ http://sashavol.com/frozlunky/

ArtWomb 7y ago

Looks like Derek Yu is hard at work on Spelunky 2, though no release data yet Spelunky is like the Gold Standard of ProcGen in GameDev. It just works. Trying to apply the same techniques to Super Mario Bros might not. "Instant Death" and randomized exploration rewards seem to be key. This is a game that is probably impossible for an AI to master http://pcg.wikidot.com/pcg-games:spelunky http://pcg.wikidot.com/pcg-games:spelunky OpenAI also recently released a ProcGen Benchmark that conceivably is used to explore generalizability in learning agents. A few of the modes look like they were Spelunky-inspired ;) https://openai.com/blog/procgen-benchmark/ https://openai.com/blog/procgen-benchmark/

chongli 7y ago
"Instant Death" and randomized exploration rewards seem to be key. Usually called permanent death or permadeath. These two happen to be the defining traits of the Roguelike genre. They’re the two highest value factors of the Berlin Interpretation [1]. [1] http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretation http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=Berlin_Interpretat... Note that all of the other factors have been violated by one Roguelike or another, so I would take them with a grain of salt.

b0rsuk 7y ago

If you like Spelunky, check out Catacomb Kids. It's similar in many ways, but has fundamental differences such as no terrain destruction (by design). Check out youtube videos to see if it's for you. It's harder than Spelunky. Caution: it's having trouble getting out of Early Access. Only two stages are complete, third is on the way and a patch comes out every month or two.