Mechanic miner: reflection-driven game mechanic discovery and level design

Authors:
Michael Cook;Simon Colton;Azalea Raad;Jeremy Gow
Affiliations:
Computational Creativity Group, Imperial College, London;Computational Creativity Group, Imperial College, London;Computational Creativity Group, Imperial College, London;Computational Creativity Group, Imperial College, London
Venue:
EvoApplications'13 Proceedings of the 16th European conference on Applications of Evolutionary Computation
Year:
2013

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Abstract

We introduce Mechanic Miner, an evolutionary system for discovering simple two-state game mechanics for puzzle platform games. We demonstrate how a reflection-driven generation technique can use a simulation of gameplay to select good mechanics, and how the simulation-driven process can be inverted to produce challenging levels specific to a generated mechanic. We give examples of levels and mechanics generated by the system, summarise a small pilot study conducted with example levels and mechanics, and point to further applications of the technique, including applications to automated game design.