Games that include randomness?

[+Random Terrain]

Does anyone have a list (or is just smart enough to remember and list them here) Atari 2600 games that include randomness? Here is a small obvious list:

 

Adventure

 

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

 

Haunted House

 

Laser Gates

 

Marauder

 

Maze Craze

 

Superman

 

I'm looking for any game that included randomness in room placement, object or enemy placement, object or enemy actions and reactions, and so on. I'm going to list them on my Randomness page if I have room. I want to show that if they could do it back in the 1980s on a system that was harder to program, they certainly should be able to do it now.

[Nukey Shay]

I dunno if you can include Adventure. Game 3 places objects in sort of a predetermined method ("random"ly, but a limited number of ways nevertheless). All other game decisions are based on those placements and the player's moves.

[+Random Terrain]

Controlled randomness counts. It's actually the only kind of randomness that should be used in a game. Pure randomness would create all kinds of problems.

[ZylonBane]

Where are you drawing the line? Almost all games include some sort of randomness, like which enemy is going to fire, which way they're going to dodge, etc. You may as well put the entire 2600 library on that list.

[hanglyman]

Fantastic Voyage

[Wntermute]

Here are some more random titles (and how they're random):

 

Asteroids (initial location of asteroids each level)

Bermuda Triangle (types of objects flying past)

Crackpots (choice of bug ascent lanes)

Fast Food (types of food flying past)

Mines Of Minos (type of monster regeneration)

Seaquest (types of underwater objects)

Spider Fighter (types and timing of spider generation)

Swordquest Earthworld (action stages and hall travel w/ amulet)

 

..that's just off the top of my head.

[+Random Terrain]

ZylonBane, I guess I'd have to leave out games that just had random missiles (and nothing else) to keep the list down, but much of that isn't random, the enemy just shoots when you are in his path. There are many games that don't seem to have one drop of randomness, so you couldn't list every game made for the Atari 2600. Many of those anti-randomness games seem to be made by Activision, such as "Dragster" and "Grand Prix."

[Wntermute]

Where are you drawing the line? Almost all games include some sort of randomness, like which enemy is going to fire, which way they're going to dodge, etc. You may as well put the entire 2600 library on that list.

 

AIs are generally programmed to respond to user locations and actions. That's how the scientist on ET knows how to move and how Evil Otto knows where to bounce on Berzerk. The Pong AI on Video Olympics responds to your paddle location each time it hits the ball.

[Christophero Sly]

Indy 500 appears to randomly place that little dot you have to run over.

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks Hanglyman, Wntermute, and Christophero Sly. This list will fill out nicely with people like you helping me out. And thanks to anyone else who posts after this. Every game added to the list will help.

[Inky]

I'd say Blueprint contains randomness...

[Nostalgic]

You could safely say that all of the card and some of the board games include randomness. This gives you:

 

3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Othello, Video Checkers, Video Chess (maybe - if the computer has a couple of moves of equal value)

 

Backgammon, Bridge, Casino, Codebreaker (when the computer generates the code), Euchre , Poker Squares/Solitaire (will it ever be released?)

 

Ms. Pac-Man has randomness. After you pass the banana round, the fruit you get is randomly selected.

 

It appears that in Warlords, the direction in which the ball goes at the very start is random.

[+Random Terrain]

I just saw the game " Journey Escape" mentioned in another thread. Weren't all of the obstacles you had to avoid and objects you had to touch placed randomly, or was that just my imagination?

[D.Yancey]

Freeway games 5-8: the traffic speeds are random, but I think there is a predetermined number of different possible scenarios.

 

Enduro: random placement of cars

 

Robot Tank: random position of enemy appearance

 

Oink!: wolf attacks in random patterns

 

Pressure Cooker: random burgers to build

 

Kaboom!: random patterns of mad bomber

 

Stampede: Random order of cattle appearance on games 3, 4, 7, & 8

 

Starmaster: random appearance of asteroids while warping between sectors

 

Skiing: games 5 and 10 random courses

 

Barnstorming: game 4 random course

 

Sky Jinks: game 5 random course

 

Frostbite: movement of polar bear. random order of appearance of geese, clams, and crabs?????

 

Rampage: random order of edible or poison items (tv's, potions, etc.)

 

Seaquest: where will divers appear is sometimes slightly unpredictable

 

Bridge: The hands dealt

 

Kung Fu Master: attack of the bosses and knife throwers

 

Tennis and Ice Hockey: AI against the computer?

 

Crackpots: already mentioned, patterns of bugs seems random

 

River Raid II: land targets in the river sections

 

Here are a few of the Activision titles above. Hope this helps.

[figgler]

I'd say the games like Video Chess are the only ones that don't have randomness

[hanglyman]

I'd say the games like Video Chess are the only ones that don't have randomness

 

I imagine he's looking for examples of random generation code

I'd say most games do not have this, or they have random routines that

are predictable, identical each time it is run

 

Nice list Yancey, you've got those activision games down

[+Random Terrain]

Thanks D.Yancey, InkyAtari, and everyone else. Did anyone mention Raiders of the Lost Ark yet? That had a nice chunk of randomness in it (very tasty) although I hated using two joysticks.

[EricBall]

Skeleton and Skeleton+ use a simple LFSR RNG which gets cycled once per frame (including during the title & end screens, so the initial state is unknown). The Skeleton "AI" uses the RNG to determine whether to turn at a branch in the maze when it isn't actively "chasing" the player. The RNG is also used to determine the damage a player's shot does to the Skeleton, and in Skeleton+, how much damage the Skeleton does per "touch" to the player.

 

I would expect that there are many "deterministic" titles where player motion, actions & timing solely determine the outcome of the game. e.g. the ghosts in the Pacman arcade game follow a pattern or chase the player.

 

I'd say the games like Video Chess are the only ones that don't have randomness

I suspect that Video Chess does have a RNG to avoid having the game play the exact same moves all the time. This could be tested by playing several games and seeing if the computer will follow the same move sequence.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

I suspect that Video Chess does have a RNG to avoid having the game play the exact same moves all the time.

 

Hm... I didn't spot one when disassembling it this morning to verify this. But maybe some *exotic* code was used.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Inky]

Does othello have randomness?

 

It appears to me to make the same moves based upon what moves you make in the game. In short, a winning pattern.

[+wavemotion]

I dunno if you can include Adventure.  Game 3 places objects in sort of a predetermined method ("random"ly, but a limited number of ways nevertheless).  All other game decisions are based on those placements and the player's moves.

 

True. Adventure has only 18 initial starting placements for objects in game #3... but the Bat is pretty random and once objects get moved, it's pretty chaotic. Note - there is a 1 in 18 chance that the yellow key will start out in the yellow castle which makes that particular game unwinnable.

[Nukey Shay]

Nope...the bat's starting point has just as much "randomness" (since it's one of the objects as well). All other "bat"-decisions are based on if it has an object, if that object has been held a given amount of time, and what's the most desired object (from a list that is not random) in it's current room. If a player were able to make the exact same moves in a game, that game could be repeated in exactly the same way. Therefore, it's not truely random.

[Nukey Shay]

Correction:

If the player uses the "dot" to move objects into Warren's room...the bat may detect them there, but might not. That's really the only random part of the game that I noticed (and it's still unclear on how it detects objects in that room only part of the time). I know that if the dot has been moved, and the player is inside a dragon which is being carried left-to-right by the bat (even diagonally), the bat will "see" objects in the room and trade up. So even this aspect might not be random, but based on the bat's flight and the object currently held.

[Godzilla]

entombed

[+Random Terrain]

Back to the point of a game not having randomness if the positions are predetermined. Before I start, below is a quote that sets up what I say after it.

 

Warren Robinett from a Good Deal Games interview said:

 

I used the random object placement in level 3 for variety. I didn't want it to be like a puzzle, where once you've solved it, it's not very interesting to do it again, and I wanted to avoid that. The bat was also added as a confusion factor, to move objects around a bit, so that the game wasn't too predictable. (I did make a mistake in my random object placement code, and there is a 1 in 18 chance that the yellow key will start out in the yellow castle, making the game unwinnable. This only happens in level 3.)

 

As you may gather from the above, I think that randomness in a game is very strong medicine, and must be very carefully controlled.

 

As Warren Robinett's mistake showed, randomness is "strong medicine," so even "Controlled Randomness" can make a game unplayable if you're not careful. A person could do what some people say is impossible and create a Super Mario type of game where the position of enemies and platforms are in random positions, but those positions would have to be carefully thought out.

 

Some people say that games with "Controlled Randomness" don't really contain randomness because the positions have been predetermined. That makes no sense because it's common knowledge that card and dice games contain randomness, but aren't those 52 cards and 6 sides of a die predetermined? If you think of "Controlled Randomness" in that way, there should be no argument. The positions are still randomly selected from a list of possible choices, so predetermination does not cancel out randomness. Predetermination is an attempt to harness an awesome power for the sake of playability. With pure randomness, there is no playability and without "Controlled Randomness," there is no replayability.