[Question] Procedural Generated Tower Defense maps

RedP

Member
Hi, I had an idea to try to make a tower defense with procedurally generated maps, and I would like to know your opinion of what is the best way to approach this. The idea is the following: create tower defense maps with the same length, however with different formats. The idea I had is to divide the size of the map into cells of the same size on a grid, then select one point to start and another to finish, but I also don't know exactly how to connect the two points randomly or if that's the best approach, I would be appreciated to receive some suggestions. Thank you! :)
 
Well, it's basically the same way you procedurally generate any map, and the way to accomplish it is very dependent on your game. For instance, what obstacles are there? How many paths are you looking to generate? Do the paths have to follow a general outline (i.e. League's "3 lane" style)? What are the points of interest on the map? How do you want them to be arranged? What's the maximal/minimal distance between things? Etc, etc...

The basic idea of proc gen is to come up with a series of rules and have an algorithm follow those rules within randomised parameters. These rules can be "ground up" with the computer following basic rules to generate complexity or "top down" where you have specific rules and the computer is restricted in it's generation to following those rules strongly. You'll be almost guaranteed to need a pathfinding algorithm.

Proc gen requires a relatively thorough knowledge of coding (compared to creating say, a platformer), because you'll be running into quite complex interactions between things and you have to have a pretty thorough understanding of how things should work so that you can pinpoint where you are going wrong when things don't work. It takes a lot of effort and research, but it's also quite fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Here's a link dump to get you started. It's not all specifically related to exactly what you're asking (though some is), but it has a lot of general info that helps to understand the process of proc gen:
 

RedP

Member
Well, it's basically the same way you procedurally generate any map, and the way to accomplish it is very dependent on your game. For instance, what obstacles are there? How many paths are you looking to generate? Do the paths have to follow a general outline (i.e. League's "3 lane" style)? What are the points of interest on the map? How do you want them to be arranged? What's the maximal/minimal distance between things? Etc, etc...

The basic idea of proc gen is to come up with a series of rules and have an algorithm follow those rules within randomised parameters. These rules can be "ground up" with the computer following basic rules to generate complexity or "top down" where you have specific rules and the computer is restricted in it's generation to following those rules strongly. You'll be almost guaranteed to need a pathfinding algorithm.

Proc gen requires a relatively thorough knowledge of coding (compared to creating say, a platformer), because you'll be running into quite complex interactions between things and you have to have a pretty thorough understanding of how things should work so that you can pinpoint where you are going wrong when things don't work. It takes a lot of effort and research, but it's also quite fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Here's a link dump to get you started. It's not all specifically related to exactly what you're asking (though some is), but it has a lot of general info that helps to understand the process of proc gen:
I think I'm not ready for something so complicated yet, I was thinking more about a common tower defense map, without obstacles, with only one path. However, the algorithm would take 20 tiles of 16x16 pixels and create paths with different formats using these 20 tiles. And thank you for the links
 
Top