C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:27:00 -0400 (CLT)

The guy reponsible (amongst others) for the Sims has given a presentation
of how new game - Spore.  There's a long and fascinating video of a
presentation -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore -
which, unfortunately, seems to finish before the very end of the talk.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(game)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore might be better give the auto-URL
algorithm I use in the blog software)
http://gonshaw.net/musings/2005/musing_03_16_05.htm
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3138792&did=1

There's an emphasis on "procedural generation" - the items in the game are
synthesized from sub-components, but the most important difference with
the Sims, it seems to me, is the idea of evolution, which gives more of a
direction/aim and allows different sub-games/aspects at different scales.
It's also cute/pretty.

However, returning to procedural generation -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation - there's an obvious
question: what's the underlying technology?  I can't find an answer, but
presumably it's C++.  But I'm not th eonly one wondering if there's
another option - http://www.codecomments.com/archive274-2005-3-428948.html

Andrew