Lonewolves wrote:
It can work brilliantly if the game mechanics are designed around it (see Spelunky). Sadly however it's often used instead of good level design.
It works well in Binding of Isaac, as that's not a deep game and intended for quick playthroughs and multiple replays. I was about to mention the old Saturn game, Virtual Hydlide of a game that did it badly, but in double-checking my facts, I found this - Quote:
A different game world is generated each time a new game is started. However, instead of traditional random dungeons, the developers of Virtual Hydlide actually designed more than 20 different level maps for each of the seven dungeons, as well as more than 20 different maps for the overworld. When starting a new game, the maps for the dungeons and overworld are randomly selected from their designated level sets. Thus, though every dungeon design was created by a human designer rather than a random level generator, there are more than 25 billion possible game worlds. Moreover, each game world is identified with an alphabetic code which may be entered when starting a new game, allowing players to replay favorite level designs or compete for high scores on identical worlds. However, non-boss enemies do not appear in set locations, and continuously respawn in randomly determined locations.
So, not procedurally-generated at all.. turns out it was just a crap game.
