Is it wrong to put artificial words into artificial mouths?
Considering the scale of its influence in more modern times, Rogue made only a minor splash in the world of videogames when it arrived in 1980. Despite its profile, though, the adoption of procedural generation in its level design was controversial enough to inspire the Great Game Designer Revolt of 1981, played out across bulletin boards as developers railed against the threat of machines taking level-making jobs meant for humans.
Except there was no such thing, of course. Rather, machine-authored initiatives have permeated throughout games ever since, to the extent that nowadays there exists an entire subgenre of shooters, ARPGs and more besides whose construction is defined at least in part by code acting in a design role. Along the way, production tools such as SpeedTree have emerged to remove a bit more of the human toil from the creation process – without, apparently, provoking any foliage specialists into the bargain.
Other areas, however – particularly those involving storytelling – are proving a lot more resistant to the rise of the machine. Is it more digestible, somehow, to task a set of procedural algorithms with constructing a virtual shrub than it is to get them to write a story? Because as humans we might be able to plant a tree but we cannot literally create one, whereas the ability to spin a yarn is in some way built into our DNA?
Clearly this is a chewy topic, full of nuance and deserving of discussion. On p8, we consider the rise of AI-driven dialogue in games from the perspective of pioneers in the field and also creatives pushing against the prospect of humans becoming excluded from work in narrative fields.
But this is a 2024 problem (or opportunity, depending on who you ask). This month we’re also taking a trip forward to 2066, where Sumo Newcastle’s latest production invites us to switch off from such concerns and focus instead on getting to the finish line without getting our torsos pulped or heads lopped off. Our exclusive cover story talking to the team behind the glossy, ultraviolent universe of DeathSprint 66 begins on p54.