Is endless running game really "endless"?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

I can see how games such as Zig Zag and most of Ketchapp style games can be endless. But, are other games such as Color Switch really endless? The distance of each hall in Zig Zag is definitely endless since its generated with a random number generator. But, Color Switch doesn’t seem to be since the map is always the same whenever you restart it. It seems like the game isn’t really endless, rather it just has a lot of obstacles that most players would never see the end part.

If you want to make a game that’s endless but you can’t necessarily use a random number generator, is the only solution to making such game is just creating a lot of obstacles?

#2

You can set params like I am sure the levels like temple run just have premade pramas. Like if the random number generator give me an 8 lets load the next 100 meters and we got 3 time to load the this specific water scene. Of course their more advance things happening like we cannot do the mine cart level until a least 1000 meters.

#3

It is entirely possible to have a randomly generated endless game that plays/creates the same sequence of obstacles.  The trick is using a random number generator that is guaranteed deterministic and then feeding it the same starting seed on each re-play or each checkpoint.

#4

Beware however.  math.random() (even with the same seed) is not deterministic across platforms.  

This is because, math.random() is utilizing a platform library and that library is different on iOS versus Android versus Windows versus OS X.

If you want guaranteed platform independent deterministic random numbers, use one of the pure Lua random libraries:

#5

Hey Roaming gamer thats very interesting good to know for the future, I removed my post as I realised that I didn’t know enough on the subject and realised I may have opened a can of worms.

#6

Sure thing.  Just wanted to ensure there were no surprises.

#7

You can set params like I am sure the levels like temple run just have premade pramas. Like if the random number generator give me an 8 lets load the next 100 meters and we got 3 time to load the this specific water scene. Of course their more advance things happening like we cannot do the mine cart level until a least 1000 meters.

#8

It is entirely possible to have a randomly generated endless game that plays/creates the same sequence of obstacles.  The trick is using a random number generator that is guaranteed deterministic and then feeding it the same starting seed on each re-play or each checkpoint.

#9

Beware however.  math.random() (even with the same seed) is not deterministic across platforms.  

This is because, math.random() is utilizing a platform library and that library is different on iOS versus Android versus Windows versus OS X.

If you want guaranteed platform independent deterministic random numbers, use one of the pure Lua random libraries:

#10

Hey Roaming gamer thats very interesting good to know for the future, I removed my post as I realised that I didn’t know enough on the subject and realised I may have opened a can of worms.

#11

Sure thing.  Just wanted to ensure there were no surprises.