Looking through the heaps of projects on my computer and the few that I have uploaded online at http://tangentialtopics.blogspot.co.uk/ a few themes emerge.

I enjoy coming up with neat algorithms to generate game worlds, be they world maps, dungeons or galaxies. Procedural content generation is very rewarding to explore as the designer!

Most of my favourite games are real time strategy or city builders, where you control whole groups of characters or give high level commands. Most of my projects fit into this ‘management’ genre where you don’t have a single character and the controls involve clicking and dragging.

Along with procedural content generation algorithms I also have a weakness for Cellular Automata or other simulation-like game rules. By only having a few actions each agent can take you end up with simple code that results in fascinating emergent phenomena. This ties into having quite active agents in the world with some rudimentary AI.

Having randomly generated game worlds with agents moving around without a distinct player character means the game projects I produce are more like ‘toys’ that you can just sit and watch. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not 😛 Certainly I enjoy the process of creating and then setting in motion a little simulation. At the very least you can expect me to produce something that is nice to watch, assuming my minimalist programmer art isn’t too bad.