Julian Togelius

Mark J. Nelson

Noor Shaker

This book presents the most up-to-date coverage of procedural content generation (PCG) for games, specifically the procedural generation of levels, landscapes, items, rules, quests, or other types of content. Each chapter explains an algorithm type or domain, including fractal methods, grammar-based methods, search-based and evolutionary methods, constraint-based methods, and narrative, terrain, and dungeon generation. The authors are active academic researchers and game developers, and the book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students of courses on games and creativity; game developers who want to learn new methods for content generation; and researchers in related areas of artificial intelligence and computational intelligence.

Procedural Content Generation in Games

Ephriam D. Dickson III

The history of Fort Bridger represents a microcosm of the development of the American West. Situated in an area initially inhabited by the Shoshone people, Fort Bridger was established during a transitional phase between the fur-trade era and the period of western migration. The fort became one of the most important supply points along the nation’s western trail network. Later, the post served as a bastion of civilization as one of a number of western military posts. Soldiers at the fort protected not only the lives and property of its local citizenry but also the emerging transportation and communication advancements of a nation. Following the Army’s departure, a small settlement emerged at Fort Bridger, using buildings and materials from the old military garrison. Today, the fort and town remain active, in part as a respite for travelers just as it had been more than 150 years ago.

Fort Bridger

Best known for his role in the arrest and killing of Crazy Horse and for the book he wrote, The Indian Sign Language, Captain William Philo Clark (1845–1884) was one of the Old Army’s renaissance men, by turns administrator, fighter, diplomat, explorer, and ethnologist. As such, Clark found himself at center stage during some of the most momentous events of the post–Civil War West: from Brigadier General George Crook’s infamous “Starvation March” to the Battle of Slim Buttes and the Dull Knife Fight, then to the attack against the Bannocks at Index Peak and Sitting Bull’s final fight against the U.S. Army. Captain Clark’s life story, here chronicled in full for the first time, is at once an introduction to a remarkable figure in the annals of nineteenth-century U.S. history, and a window on the exploits of the U.S. Army on the contested western frontier. White Hat follows Clark from his upbringing in New York State to his life as a West Point cadet, through his varied army posts on the northern plains, and finally to his stint in Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan’s headquarters first in Chicago and later in Washington, D.C. Along the way, Mark J. Nelson sets the record straight on Clark’s controversial relationship with Crazy Horse during the Lakota leader’s time at Camp Robinson, Nebraska. His book also draws a detailed picture of Clark’s service at Fort Keogh, Montana Territory, including what is arguably his greatest success—the securing of Northern Cheyenne leader Little Wolf’s peaceful surrender. In telling Clark’s story, White Hat illuminates the history of the nineteenth-century American military and the Great Plains, including the Grand Duke Alexis’s buffalo hunt, the Great Sioux War, and the careers of Crook and Sheridan. Nelson's examination of Clark’s early years in the army offers a rare look at the experiences of a staff officer stationed on the frontier and expands our view of the army, as well as the United States’ westward march.

Mark J. Nelson

Books

Your next favorite book is out there