The exhibition begins by documenting the stages of development of games from both established companies, such as Nintendo and Sony, and independent developers. One of these games is The Last of Us. Set in a post-apocalyptic United States, it follows Ellie, a young girl trying to survive. On display are character sketches, hand-written sticky notes representing the video sequences, and the lines of code that translate these concepts into high-quality graphics. Ellie, however, is not your average character who repeats the same set of instructions each time: she has been programmed with artificial intelligence so that she can react to her surroundings during the game. Embedding such code into the design can reduce the predictability of the game’s storyline, making it more realistic and providing a better experience for the players. To make the visuals more convincing, the movements of the characters were adopted from human actors using a motion capture suit, which is included here as part of the installation. The suit is covered with reflective markers so that the motion of the person wearing it can be optically tracked by a camera.
There are also a range of other innovative approaches currently being used to create better game environments. For example, No Man’s Sky, a game in which players fly spaceships to different planets, is based on procedural generation instead of sets of sequences. This technique uses algorithms to create complex graphics, which depend on the player’s actions, from only some basic elements provided by the human designers. As a result, players have quintillions of algorithm-generated planets — each containing algorithm-generated animals, plants and buildings — to explore. The game is a testament to the technological achievements of the past decade and the innovative tools available to developers.
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