A natural and plausible world

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about what characteristics are needed to render a virtual environment to a vivid and exciting place.

Computer games create exciting and unique virtual worlds. Depending of the game, the worlds are either linear levels, limited open world maps or infinite procedurally generated worlds. The naturalness and plausibility of these virtual worlds depends on the degree to which the virtual world autonomously reacts to a player or generates random events.

For the player to feel accepted and being a part of a virtual environment, it is important to design it in a way that reacts to a player’s actions. Also, a player has to be able to initiate and control events inside of these environments. For achieving a world that feels natural and not static, the environment has to provide events that are not a result of a player’s actions. However, to be effective, these events have to be plausible and logical based on a player’s previous experiences or real world knowledge. Then, the virtual environments start to become vivid as players can observe events everywhere around like in reality.

The Universim

This is a thing I just observed as I started to play The Universim. This game puts the player in control of an entire little planet that is inhabitated by a small civilization. The goal of the player, who is a god to the little virtual people, is to control and to help them thrive by interacting with them. However, the little virtual creatures also live their lifes on their own and start building little houses and gathering resources. As a result of this, the virtual planet is perceived as a vivid environment that would also continue to exist and to grow without the player. It has a bit the fascination of watching an aquarium that also represents a bounded little world.

I’m already excited to continue observing my little planet and discovering even more little secrets … !