Theres a number of excellent posts on the blog of Indie studio Introversion Software, the creators of Darwinia and Defcon. Introversion’s solution to the spiraling costs of game development is the employment of procedural content as a replacement for a warehouse of battery artists. Their visual style is lo-fi (think Tron) but by no means out of date, they have worked with the minimal aesthetic and kinda run with it, rather than trying to use it to replicate the industry-standard plasto-photorealism.

In a refreshing change to the closed-airtight box of game development, they are spilling all manner of beans about what they are up to for their next title, Subversion. This currently involves the investigation of procedurally generated cities. The distinguishable and procedurally-generatable patterns at different levels make it such a cool set of systems to explore. I remember chatting to my brother about this a year or so ago, its a hugely interesting thing, I think due to the chainable nature of the systems involved. You can chain a city generator to a block generator to a building generator and generate enormous amounts of content. Anyway, make sure you check out posts two and four - especially the videos. The cityscape reminds me a lot of Substrate by Jared Tarbell.

There seem to be a number of open-source (?) projects offering a starting point for the exploration of procedural cities, such as Citygen, and CGen. For more in-depth reading material, its probably worth checking out the work of the American architect Christopher Alexander.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is the second book by Malcolm Gladwell, author if the hugely successful book The Tipping Point. Its been out for a while, but I’ve only just got round to reading it.

Its central theme is a power of the subconscious meadows of the mind - the huge untapped abilities that the subconscious appears to offer, plus a study of a number of circumstances when the subconscious acts the arrogant drunk : blurting out suggestions with false confidence. As with his previous book, Gladwell argument is sewn together by employing a number of case studies, and his examples are as eclectic as his previous book - from art historians and New York cops, to military generals and orchestral musicians. The abilities of the mind and the amount of raw power that sits inaccessible on the other side of the subconscious divide has always fascinated me (I did a year of Psychology as part of my degree) and its the kind of thing that you see fleetingly through the exceptionally talented or the psychologically unusual (such as Autistic Savants).

It does a great job of presenting a lot of fascinating information about the subject, and does so in a manner that is hugely accessible and engaging. Its just the kind of science-lite I love to read for pleasure (much like Steven Johnson’s books). You won’t leave the book as an authority on any of the subjects touched upon, but its likely you will leave with a heightened sense of wonder of the human mind.