I've thrown away good game design ideas because I couldn't find a way to communicate them. The mechanic worked, but if players couldn't see it, they couldn't learn it, they couldn't master it and they couldn't enjoy it. To me game design and the user interface are so intertwined that they're basically the same thing.
The same can be true for proc gen. If you don't find ways for the player to understand your proc gen rules, they can be perceived as boring randomness. Being able to master a system makes it intrinsically interesting. If you can't, it has to rely on extrinsic motivation like player progression.
Even though the proc gen in Curious Expedition might appear fairly random at first, there are several information layers that can be uncovered with increasing mastery:
- Beginner: Regions had visible boundaries. Players could see the grid and learn that each region guaranteed certain location types.
- Intermediate: When you see a point of interest questionmark in the distance, the specific terrain it is located on would tell you what type of location it was (e.g. villages are always close to water).
- Expert: Seemingly random decorative landmarks like stone statues signal specific location types even before you spot their associated question mark
Some patterns were obvious. Others took dozens of hours to spot. But all of them were designed to be discovered. They are part of the game design, instead of living in a separate realm that is obfuscated to the player.
This is post 6 in my series on the "95% problem" in procedural design. In lesson #5 I wrote about how you can also exploit being unclear about your proc gen rules. I think being smart about combining both of these rules is the trick.
What's a procedural pattern that you uncovered after having played a game for several hours and that completely changed how you looked at it?