Smart Games: Emergent Game Design

Gaming is a rapidly growing recreational activity. Over the last two decades we have seen a proliferation of games across all genres and user demographics. The consumption of content in modern games has grown as a result of the advancing technology available to game designers, as well as the growing expectations of the audience. The need for increasing the value of the content and expanding potential audience grows every day. Using dynamic adjustments to the underlying game systems as the player experiences the game, this paper will demonstrate how using emergent principles combined with other foundational systems, such as evolutionary algorithms, can increase the value of the content created for any game. This added value is of benefit to both those who have made the game, and the users who experience the results.