My algorithm creates technically diverse planets, but testers say everything feels arbitrarily weird rather than intentionally designed. How do you balance pure procedural generation with subtle storytelling? I want certain planets to hint at ancient civilizations or ecological collapses without placing manual markers. Any successful approaches for embedding narrative logic into noise algorithms or biome qualification rules?
Implement story seeds as secondary noise layers. Example: Ancient ruins only spawn where moisture <0.2 and tectonic activity >0.7. Use these to gate asset variations in your tile sets.
Play No Man’s Sky’s latest expansions—they use proc-gen to create derelict freighters with environmental storytelling. Steal that vibe! Maybe add rare ‘corrupted’ biomes with unnatural mineral formations.
Create a ‘story weight’ system. Each planet gets 1-3 narrative keywords during generation (war-torn, overgrown, mined-out). Use these to filter which proc-gen assets and terrain deformations get applied.