Video games demand is constantly increasing, which requires the costly production of large amounts of content. Towards this challenge, researchers have developed Search-Based Procedural Content Generation (SBPCG), that is, the (semi-)automated creation of content through search algorithms. We survey the current state of SBPCG, reporting work appeared in the field between 2011-2022 and identifying open research challenges. The results lead to recommendations for practitioners and to the identification of several potential future research avenues for SBPCG.

Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game unit generation is an unexplored area of Procedural Content Generation (PCG) research, which leaves the question of how to automatically generate interesting and balanced units unanswered. Creating unique and balanced units can be a difficult task when designing an RTS game, even for humans. Having an automated method of designing units could help developers speed up the creation process as well as find new ideas. In this work we propose a method of generating balanced and useful RTS units. We draw on Search-Based PCG and a fitness function based on Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS). We present ten units generated by our system designed to be used in the game microRTS, as well as results demonstrating that these units are unique, useful, and balanced.