Framing tension for game generation

Abstract

Emotional progression in narratives is carefully structured by human authors to create unexpected and exciting situations,

often culminating in a climactic moment. This paper explores how an autonomous computational designer can create frames of tension which guide the procedural creation of

levels and their soundscapes in a digital horror game. Using narrative concepts, the autonomous designer can describe an intended experience that the automated level generator must adhere to. The level generator interprets this intent, bound by the possibilities and constraints of the game. The tension of the generated level guides the allocation of sounds in the level, using a crowdsourced model of tension.