[HN Gopher] City Generator
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       City Generator
        
       Author : breck
       Score  : 1130 points
       Date   : 2022-02-14 20:46 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (watabou.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (watabou.github.io)
        
       | sklargh wrote:
       | This tool generates most of my cities for my tabletop games (OSE
       | [B/X]). He has a fully integrated system that can take you from
       | territory to town level. It's really impressive stuff.
       | 
       | Also saves refs like myself hours of (very poorly done)
       | sketching.
       | 
       | Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/watawatabou
        
       | leathersoft wrote:
       | This tool is super impressive. Medieval book editors will go
       | crazy with it!!
        
       | Intries wrote:
       | Wow this is really neat. I could spend hours with this.
        
       | _Microft wrote:
       | Here's a pointer: once you have entered "warp" mode from the
       | context menu, options in the "Menu" menu change and you can
       | choose in which way you want to modify the map.
        
         | jamespwilliams wrote:
         | Also scroll on the mousewheel to increase/decrease the radius
         | of points to warp.
         | 
         | And also check out the Style menu! I like some of the
         | alternative colour schemes.
         | 
         | The level of detail in this is impressive.
        
         | ninju wrote:
         | Yeah...everything is accessed from the MENU button
         | 
         | Refreshing the page does _not_ generate a new map
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | was_a_dev wrote:
       | Now I want a medevial Plauge Inc game
        
       | lordleft wrote:
       | I've been using this for years for the 5e game I run. It's
       | surreal seeing it here but it's a great tool
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | drusepth wrote:
       | Other cool generators from other creators also (in addition to
       | those already posted, copied from [1]):
       | 
       | - Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator:
       | https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
       | 
       | - Oskar Stalberg's City Generator:
       | https://www.oskarstalberg.com/game/CityGenerator/
       | 
       | - donjon's Fantasy World Generator:
       | https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/
       | 
       | - Myth Weavers Dungeon Generator: https://www.myth-
       | weavers.com/generate_dungeon.php
       | 
       | [1] https://www.fiction.tools/#worldbuilding-map-generators
        
       | pimlottc wrote:
       | This is really cool, but the mobile UX is confusing. There's no
       | UI, just the generated map. I tried reloading for a new city but
       | that doesn't work because the URL is updated to include the
       | generation parameters (which is not obvious on mobile).
       | 
       | Using iOS 15 mobile Safari on iPhone Mini 12
       | 
       | EDIT: now seeing a menu button that wasn't there before, that
       | helps
        
         | octodog wrote:
         | You may need to tap for the UI to show.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | elktea wrote:
       | this thing does a better job than all of the new developments
       | here
        
       | 100pctremote wrote:
       | Another developer of interesting generators in this vein is
       | Martin O'Leary (twitter.com/mewo2).
       | 
       | Metropologeny: https://twitter.com/metropologeny Uncharted Atlas:
       | https://twitter.com/unchartedatlas
       | 
       | https://mewo2.com
        
       | theguyovrthere wrote:
       | This got me jones'n for SimCity...
        
       | samwillis wrote:
       | Love these sort of things.
       | 
       | It's been on HN a few time before but Townscaper by @OskaSta on
       | twitter is also brilliant. He's worth following as he documents
       | the development of the projects he's working on, currently a new
       | island generator. Really interesting intersection of algorithms
       | and art. Often shares other peoples work to thats super
       | interesting, I have a feeling he may have retweeted something
       | about this city generator but not sure if it's the same one.
       | 
       | https://mobile.twitter.com/OskSta
       | 
       | https://www.townscapergame.com/
       | 
       | Edit:
       | 
       | Yes, it is the one Oskar has retweeted, this is the creator:
       | https://mobile.twitter.com/watawatabou
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | Same author as this one[1] on Itch.io too, I think?
         | 
         | 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17925666
        
         | BMorearty wrote:
         | I discovered Townscaper a couple weeks ago. It's relaxing to
         | play with and I have been enjoying building a reproduction of
         | Mont-Saint-Michel...until yesterday when I ran into a
         | limitation in the iPad version. :( According to Oskar's reply,
         | I can get either the height I need or the width I need, but not
         | both.
         | https://twitter.com/moreartyart/status/1493073923251994628?s...
        
           | tshaddox wrote:
           | I wonder if these limits actually do some client-side
           | performance analysis, or if they just have all iOS devices
           | hardcoded with those low limits. An iPad Pro is likely
           | significantly faster than a whole lot of laptops used to play
           | Townscaper.
        
         | oliyoung wrote:
         | Townscaper just got a wider release too from just being on PC
         | for a long time, it's on iOS/Android and on Xbox Game Pass too.
         | Wonderful fun.
        
           | barbecue_sauce wrote:
           | Also been on Switch for a while.
        
       | madrox wrote:
       | I've used these a few times in my D&D games. They're great!
        
       | Pawka wrote:
       | This is beautiful! And must be even more beautiful from
       | technology side.
       | 
       | I have recently became interested into procedural generation as
       | my free time hobby. As a backend software engineer I was looking
       | for a side project with no commitment. Which would be flexible to
       | apply different types of technologies, boring and interesting at
       | the same time. "The Forever Project" [1] article describes
       | motivation behind it.
       | 
       | Since I had no experience with Rust, game development &
       | procedural generated stuff, combining everything sounded pretty
       | covering my "Forever Project" theme. I'm currently going through
       | Rust Rougelike tutorial[2] to get basic understanding how games
       | are being developed & maps are generated. I like the tutorial a
       | lot because it covers so much different topics. From game dev,
       | few libraries, to different approaches of maps generators.
       | 
       | There is a lot of content there but I'm already raising questions
       | to myself where to look next? What should I learn & focus so I
       | could deepen my knowledge in procedural generated content? I
       | understand I always can read random tutorials (what I'm doing)
       | and try to glue something from them. But maybe you have advises
       | or more guided content as books, long tutorials, courses?
       | 
       | Thanks.
       | 
       | [1] https://heredragonsabound.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-
       | forever-p...
       | 
       | [2]
       | https://bfnightly.bracketproductions.com/rustbook/chapter_0....
        
         | mysterydip wrote:
         | That rust tutorial looks like a good place to start. RogueBasin
         | has a good set of articles covering different aspects of
         | roguelike building, including procedural generation:
         | http://roguebasin.com/index.php/Articles
         | 
         | There's also this port of "the complete roguelike tutorial"
         | from python to rust: https://github.com/tomassedovic/roguelike-
         | tutorial
        
       | Narretz wrote:
       | Pretty cool. I had a city with an open square in the middle, and
       | tried to generate another square somwhere else, but it didn't
       | work. I only managed to move the streets.
        
       | vietjtnguyen wrote:
       | For anyone looking for more depth for their TTRPG games I highly
       | suggest exploring https://eigengrausgenerator.com/. It will
       | lazily generate beautiful, varied details on a town, it's
       | locations, it's buildings, it's denizens, their relations,
       | provide story hooks, and more. Like a good game master it gives
       | just enough surface detail to maintain the immersion, but will
       | generate more detail as you (or your players) interact with
       | whatever catches your (their) fancy.
        
       | big_elephant wrote:
       | this is amazing. does anyone know how one would get started
       | building something like this?
        
       | screwgoth wrote:
       | Thank You. There's 30 mins. in the Watabou's "generator"
       | blackhole
        
       | bstar77 wrote:
       | Are any of these generators open source?
        
       | yamaneko wrote:
       | Watabou has created many great projects. Besides the already
       | mentioned Pixel Dungeon, check out these other generators:
       | 
       | - Neighborhood generator: https://watabou.itch.io/neighbourhood
       | 
       | - One Page Dungeon: https://watabou.itch.io/one-page-dungeon
       | 
       | - ProcGen Mansion: https://watabou.itch.io/procgen-mansion
       | 
       | - Village Generator: https://watabou.itch.io/village-generator
       | 
       | - Perilous Shores: https://watabou.itch.io/perilous-shores
       | 
       | - Castle Generator: https://watabou.itch.io/castle-in-the-mist
       | 
       | - Fantasy Manor: https://watabou.itch.io/fantasy-manor
       | 
       | - Rune Generator: https://watabou.itch.io/rune-generator
       | 
       | And there are many others in his profile.
        
         | spelunker wrote:
         | These tools are great, and a little amusing sometimes.
         | Description from a generated dungeon:
         | 
         | > Long after the Blind Lady's fall the den remained deserted.
         | Currently it is overrun with eagles, which don't care about the
         | history of the place. Rumors say that a legendary looking glass
         | Torthos-Tyroth is hidden here.
         | 
         | Darn eagles.
        
         | Rebelgecko wrote:
         | If you like these you might also enjoy some of Lingdong Huang's
         | generators.
         | 
         | This one is my personal favorite, some day when I have the time
         | I want to hook it up to an e-ink display: https://shan-shui-
         | inf.lingdong.works/
        
           | homarp wrote:
           | earlier discussion:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23469233 with link to
           | source code
        
       | mcv wrote:
       | These are really good. I've seen several of these sort of city
       | generators, but I like this one better than most. I'm not sure
       | why exactly, but I immediately want to use these in an RPG. There
       | are professional hand-made fantasy cities that aren't as good as
       | these.
        
       | amenghra wrote:
       | One of my all time favorite fantasy map generator:
       | https://rawgit.com/wlievens/scallywag/master/index.html
       | 
       | (source is here: https://github.com/wlievens/scallywag)
        
       | edmcnulty101 wrote:
       | How does one get started on the technology and algorithms for
       | this?
        
       | boiledbuns wrote:
       | It's been a while since I've seen this name! They also authored a
       | roguelike titled pixel dungeon [1] which I've sunk countless
       | hours into when I was in high school. I suppose city generation
       | not too dissimilar to dungeon generation
       | 
       | [1]: https://watabou.itch.io/pixel-dungeon
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | Which also gave rise to a million remixes / embellished
         | versions, Shattered Pixel Dungeon[1] remains my fave roguelike
         | on mobile!
         | 
         | 1: https://shatteredpixel.com/shatteredpd/
        
       | quirk wrote:
       | This is so good. My town of Cheesewall will never be marauded.
        
         | mabbo wrote:
         | I was delighted when a section of my town was named "Fairy
         | Ferry".
        
         | adnmcq999 wrote:
         | My mouse army is marching there as we speak
        
       | howlin wrote:
       | "watabou" is already famous for Pixel Dungeon, one of the best
       | Rogue-like games for mobile. It's inspired many forks as well.
       | 
       | This project looks to be on the way to another interesting
       | contribution to OSS.
        
         | primax wrote:
         | Obligatory link to Pixel Dungeon:
         | http://pixeldungeon.watabou.ru/
        
       | standeven wrote:
       | Cool project. The cities feel very old-world, it would be neat to
       | have more modern grid-style layouts too.
        
       | tornato7 wrote:
       | Check the sidebar on /r/proceduralgeneration if you want to see
       | some great projects like this! We used to have a monthly contest
       | and some of the entries were extremely impressive!
        
       | greybox wrote:
       | This is lovely
        
       | jmpeax wrote:
       | My favourite part is that it is not called
       | "thiscitydoesnotexist".
        
       | bovermyer wrote:
       | Here's another couple such generators, though they create star
       | systems and planets, and not medieval maps:
       | 
       | https://ironarachne.com/#/starsystem
       | 
       | https://ironarachne.com/#/planet
        
       | EcqyLUX5i wrote:
       | If you like this, you need to check out Azgaar's Fantasy Map
       | Generator: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
       | 
       | It generates a complete, customizable fantasy map with towns and
       | factions. It also integrates this city generator.
        
         | mcv wrote:
         | You can zoom in! And edit! This is really cool.
        
         | jdkee wrote:
         | See also https://www.wonderdraft.net/
        
         | ruytlm wrote:
         | Big fan of Azgaar's - used it to build the world for my
         | campaign. If anyone else who used it had issues a while back
         | with an update (around 1.6) where biomes started showing over
         | water, the solution is to clip water in the Styles tab for
         | Biomes (per
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyMapGenerator/comments/pygnkn...
         | ).
         | 
         | Strong recommend, though takes some learning.
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-15 23:02 UTC)