It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
I am just wondering if any of you know of any procedurally generated games that would be worth checking out. Here are my requirements:
* The player must control a single entity. This can be a party of adventurers, as long as they move as a single unit. In particular, I *don't* want games where each character is controlled individually. (This rule is intended to remove strategy games (like the Civilization series) from consideration.)
* The player must be in control of saving. This means that the player must be able to manually save reasonably often, and the game must never overwrite this save without the player's consent. (This rule is intended to disallow roguelike-style permadeath.)
* The procedural generation needs to meaningfully affect gameplay. In particular, things like items that change the way the game is played should be randomly placed. In particular, a game where only the map is procedurally generated, or where random treasure doesn't have huge effects on the game, is not what I'm looking for.
* No first-person perspective unless the game is grid-based.

Dungeon Hack happens to fit my requirements (as long as that Real Death option is turned off). Any others?
Mystery Dungeon series?
Any of them from Shiren to Pokemon I guess procedural dungeons/loot. I'm not sure if proc-gen is the right word, more like random. I think saving differs from game to game.
Grid based, usually one character.

I will say, some are permadeath, some are semi-perm...like if you die in a dungeon, you lose whatever you took with you, but not your levels and sometimes dungeons have checkpoints/shortcuts so you don't have to redo a bunch of levels.

aaaand fuck me, after all that, I reread your post and point 4 invalidates everything lol.

Maybe some roguelikes with permadeath off? which i guess you've also already mentioned.

Sorry for the long, and ultimately uninformative post lol.
I'd like to find some games like this too.
avatar
pkk234: Maybe some roguelikes with permadeath off? which i guess you've also already mentioned.
That still doesn't solve the saving issue, as such roguelikes still constantly auto-save and don't let you make manual saves. (Tangledeep for example; even on Adventurer difficulty, the game still auto-saves on each new floor or game exit with no manual saves, and I believe the game still auto-saves when you die (and lose half your GP, unspent JP, and XP since the last level).)
avatar
pkk234: Mystery Dungeon series?
Any of them from Shiren to Pokemon I guess procedural dungeons/loot. I'm not sure if proc-gen is the right word, more like random. I think saving differs from game to game.
Grid based, usually one character.
Shiren the Wanderer doesn't qualify, as it has roguelike-style permadeath (albeit with some meta-progress).

Also, even when you can save freely in town, the post-game dungeons are often not so nice. (Particularly awful example: The More Magical Dungeon in Torneko: The Last Hope, which has 99 floors and even a quit save (that's deleted on reload) requires the use of an item. Expecting a player to do 99 floors in one session is not reasonable.)

There's also the fact that, in many Mystery Dungeon games, the randomness tends to be relatively tame; you never find powerful game-changing items early on, for example.
avatar
pkk234: aaaand fuck me, after all that, I reread your post and point 4 invalidates everything lol.
Actually, that point doesn't invalidate the choices you made.

What it is intended to disallow is games that have the movement and perspective of a first person shooter. So, for example, it would disqualify Wizardry 8 and the Elder Scrolls games, for example (though those games don't have procedural generation except for Arena/Daggerfall, and Daggerfall's world doesn't change at all from game to game (Arena at least has random dungeons, though they're not interesting enough)).
Post edited March 01, 2020 by dtgreene
Risk of rain has a 2D side scrolling type of procedural generation, same with Diablo 2 but it's a limited type of said topic.

I will check my library tomorrow and try to update the list but it's gonna be tough to find games like that, that aren't FPS.
StarCrawlers would qualify, except not all levels are procedurally generated (is that a deal-killer?), and the random loot is more or less balanced from what I remember. Finding games that are intentionally unbalanced would be difficult, I imagine.
Battle Brothers seems to fit with all your requirements:
-The player controls a single company of mercenaries, that moves overland as a single unit.
-There is manual saving, and ironman mode is purely optional.
-Procedural generation for map, faction, events, characters and loot.
-No FPS perspective.

-Probably you forgot to add some rule to exclude games with no playable female characters, but now it's too late to change your post :P
avatar
dtgreene: I am just wondering if any of you know of any procedurally generated games that would be worth checking out. Here are my requirements:
* The player must control a single entity. This can be a party of adventurers, as long as they move as a single unit. In particular, I *don't* want games where each character is controlled individually. (This rule is intended to remove strategy games (like the Civilization series) from consideration.)
* The player must be in control of saving. This means that the player must be able to manually save reasonably often, and the game must never overwrite this save without the player's consent. (This rule is intended to disallow roguelike-style permadeath.)
* The procedural generation needs to meaningfully affect gameplay. In particular, things like items that change the way the game is played should be randomly placed. In particular, a game where only the map is procedurally generated, or where random treasure doesn't have huge effects on the game, is not what I'm looking for.
* No first-person perspective unless the game is grid-based.

Dungeon Hack happens to fit my requirements (as long as that Real Death option is turned off). Any others?
Well... No Mans Sky.

*reads a bit more of the other posts*

Its a sausage fest though. With some good will some player body types could be imagined any gender being in the suit because of bulkiness I guess or genderless because mechanical/alien.
Post edited March 01, 2020 by Anothername
I've always had a slight interest in Battle Brothers, it seems to be updated somewhat often too.
Also read that it's hard as balls. Balls.
avatar
pkk234: I've always had a slight interest in Battle Brothers, it seems to be updated somewhat often too.
Also read that it's hard as balls. Balls.
Hard as balls? Noooo...
Only if they are spiked balls covered in poison. XD
But a good game nonetheless.
King's Bounty: The Legend and subsequent series fit most of your requirements.

The map however is fixed. But items, including artifacts and creatures for recruitment are placed randomly, thus changing your priorities in quests and strategy during the battles.
avatar
dtgreene: I am just wondering if any of you know of any procedurally generated games that would be worth checking out. Here are my requirements:
* The player must control a single entity. This can be a party of adventurers, as long as they move as a single unit. In particular, I *don't* want games where each character is controlled individually. (This rule is intended to remove strategy games (like the Civilization series) from consideration.)
* The player must be in control of saving. This means that the player must be able to manually save reasonably often, and the game must never overwrite this save without the player's consent. (This rule is intended to disallow roguelike-style permadeath.)
* The procedural generation needs to meaningfully affect gameplay. In particular, things like items that change the way the game is played should be randomly placed. In particular, a game where only the map is procedurally generated, or where random treasure doesn't have huge effects on the game, is not what I'm looking for.
* No first-person perspective unless the game is grid-based.
B+ for managing describing Diablo rather good, but not perfect. For getting an "A", you should put in a little bit more effort in future tests.
About every sports manager (and many managers in general) fit the bill: You control one team (though not individual players), transfer markets / leagues / opposing teams are procedurally generated and You can save as You see fit.

*Also I seem to remember there's one version of Sensible Soccer (can't remember which) that allows plaing a single individual's career instead of playing a team. The same as above applies, but that's a sports game then, rather than a manager.
Post edited March 01, 2020 by Zadok_Allen
Just reminded this one... Low Magic Age also fits the requirements.
In fact, many of the overland features of the game remind me a lot to Battle Brothers.
Main differences: Combat is based on the OGL ruleset and you can have female characters in your party.
avatar
dtgreene: * The player must be in control of saving. This means that the player must be able to manually save reasonably often, and the game must never overwrite this save without the player's consent. (This rule is intended to disallow roguelike-style permadeath.)
Is this really that big a deal, though? It's not a console, so you have some control over saving outside of the game. For example, in Alliance Alive, you can only save into slots at inns, but you can quicksave (to a single slot) anywhere. I can turn this into "multiple save slots" using external scripts to easily copy the save game file somewhere else (and, of course, copy it back if I want to restore). Global key bindings using actkbd or the like allow me to make backups without having to exit/restart the game. This is how I and most people have been dealing with this issue forever, and it's only "cheating" if you' re subverting multi-player scoreboards (or otherwise sharing your victory experiences with your friends).

If it is a console, and run in an emulator, you can usually use save states to get around this. Or, at worst, copy the memory/card in the same way.

Of course there are some (very few) games that go so far as to make this sort of thing virtually impossible.

I guess maybe it is a big deal to you, or you wouldn't say anything about it.
avatar
Lone_Scout: Just reminded this one... Low Magic Age also fits the requirements.
In fact, many of the overland features of the game remind me a lot to Battle Brothers.
Main differences: Combat is based on the OGL ruleset and you can have female characters in your party.
Actually, it doesn't fit the "single entity" requirement, as combat has you controlling each character in the party separately, from what I understand.

While we're on the topic of Low Magic Age, a couple things I am wondering:
* Does the game allow your characters to create scrolls and wands (or other items)?
* Are psionics implemented?

avatar
dtgreene: * The player must be in control of saving. This means that the player must be able to manually save reasonably often, and the game must never overwrite this save without the player's consent. (This rule is intended to disallow roguelike-style permadeath.)
avatar
darktjm: Is this really that big a deal, though? It's not a console, so you have some control over saving outside of the game. For example, in Alliance Alive, you can only save into slots at inns, but you can quicksave (to a single slot) anywhere. I can turn this into "multiple save slots" using external scripts to easily copy the save game file somewhere else (and, of course, copy it back if I want to restore). Global key bindings using actkbd or the like allow me to make backups without having to exit/restart the game. This is how I and most people have been dealing with this issue forever, and it's only "cheating" if you' re subverting multi-player scoreboards (or otherwise sharing your victory experiences with your friends).

If it is a console, and run in an emulator, you can usually use save states to get around this. Or, at worst, copy the memory/card in the same way.

Of course there are some (very few) games that go so far as to make this sort of thing virtually impossible.

I guess maybe it is a big deal to you, or you wouldn't say anything about it.
Your description of the save system in Alliance Alive (which I own but still have not attempted to play) sould like the one in the PlayStation 2 remake of Romancing SaGa. I would say that this system is OK if the quicksave remains after you reload it, or if dungeons are short enough so that you can make your way to an inn reasonably often (provided the game doesn't overwrite your inn save when you're not at the inn, of course).

Also, there's the fact that often, games are designed around the save system. For example, if a game has permadeath, chances are the developers are going to avoid putting instant death situations into the game; using save states doesn't change this. On the other hand, in a save anywhere game, instant game overs aren't nearly as punishing.

(As a side note, the Mystery Dungeon mode of Syoban Action (press zero at the title screen) happens to satisfy my requirements, if we treat each checkpoint as a save (and keep in mind that you can warp to the start of each level), provided that the game doesn't unexpectedly send you into a new area. There aren't any items to collect in this game (or at least none that go in any sort if inventory), but the random levels are chaotic enough to make things interesting (and quite often unsolvable).)
Post edited March 01, 2020 by dtgreene