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A forum post by GBO-Possum

'@Supposer

The main objective is to be able to create numbers that are random enough such that when used to drive logical decisions and events in a game/experience, the player is unable to predict which way things are going to go simply by replaying over and over.

The secondary objective is to provide a method of ensuring that the sequence of random numbers is repeatable for testing purposes. If something goes wrong in the logic, but only in particular conditions, then it can be hard to identify the bug.

Here’s a use case for the first objective. Imagine a game where enemies spawn/appear at random intervals. If the random number generator always generates the same string of numbers, a player could learn to be highly alert at those learned times, thus eliminating the element of surprise.

And for the second objective, let’s say that a certain pattern of enemy inter-arrival times causes a problem. Let’s, for example, say that if three or more enemies arrive within a 4 second interval, then something “bad” happens (in the sense of a logic bug, or just a generally poor experience). Then it’s important (to me, the developer) to be able to reliably reproduce the situation which triggers the problem, so I can repeatably test for a fix. I don’t want to have to blindly try replaying in the hope that the condition will arise.

When testing, I want to eliminate the element of surprise!

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