I haven't had the time and energy to work on a full game (the transportation game is on hold) but instead I'm playing with lots of little ideas, some of which turn into demos. This week's idea is to algorithmically generate layouts for space stations or space bases, so that they all look different. Originally I had a lot more variety in mind, but for the demo, I only implemented simple radial layouts:

(example radial space base layout)
(This is an example layout produced by the Flash demo)

I wrote some notes about the algorithm, the source code, and how to use this in a game.

Update: [2008-12-02] I forgot to mention my motivation: I was looking for something very simple that would compile to a small size and generate “programmer art”. The layout and rendering for this compiles to under 5k, and I'd guess that it could be under 3k for something more specialized. The small size and large variety makes this a reasonable thing to include in a browser-based game.

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5 comments:

Anonymous wrote at December 02, 2008 3:57 AM

would be a nice change to the square structures in good old xkobo / kobo deluxe ;)

Anonymous wrote at December 02, 2008 9:40 AM

Not so long ago I implemented a radial base layout to plot graph animations. I called it RGraph.
There's also a link to the InfoVis paper describing pros and cons for this layout that you might find interesting, the web page is http://thejit.org.

Anonymous wrote at December 19, 2008 8:06 AM

Hi, I run a new extreme sports online magazine and we are looking for a few volenteer programmers to come up with a couple of flash games with an extreme sports basis, is this something you could be interested in?

Contact me on

Chris.headleand@xsport-magazine.co.uk

Amit wrote at December 19, 2008 9:23 AM

Anonymous: It's possible that you'll find volunteer programmers but programming is enough work that your best bet is hiring someone. Check out Gamasutra.com's jobs and resumes sections.

Anonymous wrote at December 20, 2008 12:52 AM

If you're really looking for free programmers, your best bet might be people who design open source games, more spesificly, games for linux.