The Zelda Dungeon Generator: Adopting Generative Grammars to Create Levels for Action-Adventure Games

Procedural content generation (PCG) has been applied successfully to games both in research and in industry. However, there are some genres which remain relatively untouched by PCG. This paper discusses the difficulties inherent when generating dungeons for action-adventure games. A previous technique for solving these issues which utilises different types of grammars for mission and map generation is implemented. The results are then applied to a typical tile-based 2D Zelda-style game in order to evaluate the grammar generators in an actionadventure context. The created mission and map generators, as well game application process, combine to form the Zelda Dungeon Generator (ZDG). This work finds that a wide range of functional dungeons can be produced using this method, and generation results can be successfully manipulated by changing the grammar rules input. Moreover, several obstacles rooted in the technique are found, particularly within the space generation stage. Solutions are described in detail but alternative methods are suggested as well.