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Automatic generation of tower defense levels using PCG

Authors:

Tang QintingAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Article No.: 10, Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/3337722.3337723

Published: 26 August 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Tower defense is a popular subgenre of real-time strategy game requiring detailed level design and difficulty balancing to create an enjoyable player experience. Because level production and testing are both time-consuming and labor-intensive, we propose and implement a framework to automate the process. We first analyze the three main components, or "building blocks", of the popular tower defense game Kingdom Rush: Frontiers (KRF), i.e. road maps, tower locations and monster sequences. We then automatically create new building blocks in the style of the original game, utilizing techniques from Procedural Content Generation (PCG), and assemble them to create new levels. We also add a fourth block: automated testing via a Monte Carlo search algorithm, to ensure the generated content is playable. We focus on KRF because it is a popular video game in the tower defense genre, and highlights some of the challenges of designing appropriate PCG and playtesting algorithms for a commercial video game.

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Cited By

Sepúlveda GRomero NVidal-Silva CBesoain FBarriga N(2024)Semi-Automatic Building Layout Generation for Virtual EnvironmentsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.341684812(87014-87022)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3416848
Politowski CPetrillo FElBoussaidi GUllmann GGuéhéneuc Y(2023)Assessing Video Game Balance using Autonomous Agents2023 IEEE/ACM 7th International Workshop on Games and Software Engineering (GAS)10.1109/GAS59301.2023.00011(25-32)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/GAS59301.2023.00011
DIAS DSOUSA JBARROSO BMAGALHAES I(2022)A Novel Procedural Content Generation Algorithm for Tower Defense GamesProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Algorithms, Computing and Systems10.1145/3564982.3564993(1-7)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3564982.3564993
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Automatic generation of tower defense levels using PCG
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
      1. Computer games
2. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Search methodologies

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 2019

822 pages

ISBN:9781450372176

DOI:10.1145/3337722

Conference Chair:
Sebastian Deterding
University of York
,
General Chair:
Foaad Khosmood
California Polytechnic State University
,
Program Chairs:
Johanna Pirker
Graz University of Technology
,
Thomas Apperley
CEGCS Tampere University

Copyright © 2019 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 August 2019

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FDG '19

FDG '19: The Fourteenth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 26 - 30, 2019

California, San Luis Obispo, USA

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FDG '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 46 of 124 submissions, 37%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Sepúlveda GRomero NVidal-Silva CBesoain FBarriga N(2024)Semi-Automatic Building Layout Generation for Virtual EnvironmentsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.341684812(87014-87022)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3416848
Politowski CPetrillo FElBoussaidi GUllmann GGuéhéneuc Y(2023)Assessing Video Game Balance using Autonomous Agents2023 IEEE/ACM 7th International Workshop on Games and Software Engineering (GAS)10.1109/GAS59301.2023.00011(25-32)Online publication date: May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/GAS59301.2023.00011
DIAS DSOUSA JBARROSO BMAGALHAES I(2022)A Novel Procedural Content Generation Algorithm for Tower Defense GamesProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Algorithms, Computing and Systems10.1145/3564982.3564993(1-7)Online publication date: 16-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3564982.3564993
Kraner VFister IBrezočnik L(2021)Procedural Content Generation of Custom Tower Defense Game Using Genetic AlgorithmsNew Technologies, Development and Application IV10.1007/978-3-030-75275-0_54(493-503)Online publication date: 12-May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75275-0_54

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