Procedural generation of populations for storytelling

Abstract

Procedural world generation is often limited to creating worlds devoid of people and any background. Because of this, creating a vibrant, living world is still a problem that requires a skilled designer. In this paper, we present a method that generates a socially connected population in any virtual terrain, using a mixed-initiative simulation of settlements that adapt to the world and to a designer’s input. Using this simulation, we develop a number of sample worlds that convey the expressive potential of the approach. We further evaluate ease of use with a user study. As a proof-of-concept, we implement the system to bridge the output of a terrain generation tool to the input of a narrative generation tool.