In this GDC 2018 talk, Freehold Games’ Jason Grinblat goes over the approach he used to generate histories for fantasy RPG roguelike Caves of Qud.
Grinbalt lays out some commonalities across games that generate histories, demonstrating how he avoided building a full historical simulation by generating historical events and rationalizing them after the fact.
Tying in a discussion about the power of replacement grammars, he explains how to produce rich, convincing histories on a tight scope budget.
It was an informative talk that’s definitely worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
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