Generating levels for Super Mario Bros using advanced level design concepts

• Thesis title in Czech: Generování levelů do Super Mario Bros s využitím pokročilých level-designérských konceptů
• Thesis title in English: Generating levels for Super Mario Bros using advanced level design concepts
• Key words: procedurální generování|procedurálne generovanie levelov|super mario|nintendo metóda|marioai
• English key words: procedural content generation|procedural level generation|super mario|nintendo method|marioai
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2020/2021
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Software and Computer Science Education (32-KSVI)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Vojtěch Černý
• Author: Bc. Jakub Čatloš - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 18.01.2021
• Date of assignment: 19.01.2021
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 26.01.2021
• Date and time of defence: 12.09.2022 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 21.07.2022
• Date of submission of printed version: 22.07.2022
• Date of proceeded defence: 12.09.2022
• Opponents: Mgr. Pavel Ježek, Ph.D.
• Advisors: Mgr. Jakub Gemrot, Ph.D.

Guidelines

Procedural content generation (PCG) is a long used approach for creating large quantities of playable levels for games. However, a problem with such levels is that they usually do not resemble anything a human designer would create, in terms of maintaining a consistent theme and overall quality. This thesis shall amend this by using advanced level design principles (as established by Nintendo in their modern games) in a procedural setting. Exploration and description of this methodology is a part of the thesis, as well as providing an example level generator for the Super Mario game utilizing it. Additionally, a study will be conducted to compare generated levels to levels from original Nintendo games as well as levels generated by other available generators.

References

Togelius, Julian, et al. "Procedural content generation: Goals, challenges and actionable steps." Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik, 2013.
Shaker, Noor, Julian Togelius, and Mark J. Nelson. Procedural content generation in games. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2016.
Green, Michael Cerny, et al. "Mario Level Generation From Mechanics Using Scene Stitching." arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.02992 (2020).
Green, Michael Cerny, et al. "Generating levels that teach mechanics." Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 2018.
Horn, Britton, et al. "A comparative evaluation of procedural level generators in the mario ai framework." Foundations of Digital Games 2014. Society for the Advancement of the Science of Digital Games, 2014.
Dahlskog, Steve, and Julian Togelius. "Patterns and procedural content generation: revisiting Mario in world 1 level 1." Proceedings of the First Workshop on Design Patterns in Games. 2012.