The independent gaming scene has produced a fair number of unusual pixels in the past year, but few glow as brightly, or with as much purpose, as Eskil Steenberg’s persistent world adventure, Love.

The world that Steenberg’s savant-like graphical project has created is quite unlike anything else we’ve seen, and the idea that it is the work of a single man seems stupefying. Rolling vistas of impressionist cities, part Mediterranean, part alien, play host to weird extra terrestrials and running, jumping Quake-like stick figures.

Steenberg’s discussions on how to create a world from scratch, without an art team, leave us with the feeling that this might be one of the most interesting games currently in development.

Of course being a genius is a pretty handy shortcut to making an interesting game, and Steenberg benefits from being both a talented graphics programmer and a prodigiously capable artist. The fact that he’s managed to forge a game engine that creates the world for him procedurally means that he can concentrate on the mathematics of generating startling landscapes and architecture, and tuning the smoky pixel-shading to exactly the right kind of painterly dappling.

But he’s also keen to stress that the game has some playful content. The cities that you see in the world are all fabricated by the players, and they become the focus of the game as both a base and a shared inventory. Items that players discover when exploring out in the world are generally brought back to the city and put to use. As the players explore more of the world they will build more city, and fend off attacks mounted by the AI enemies that populate the world at large.

One useful game item is a multi-frequency radio that can be used both to talk to other players and to remotely activate devices. Doors or bombs can be set off by transmitting the correct key words, and the radio itself opens up possibilities for further adventure as you spy on enemy creatures, whose chatter can be overhead via the device.

Steenberg also talks about bringing back a simple era of combat to his game: he cites 2D scrolling shooters, or the early Quake games, which he sees as similar in their run-and-gun philosophies – very unusual for a game that also boasts a persistent setting. Love might paint a typically MMO picture with its talk of inventories and adventures, but it is nothing of the sort. It’s a deeply iconoclastic mix of action game, building game, and adventure, all set in a world run by Steenberg himself.

Procedural generation could well be a crucial tool in the battle to reduce the costs of content creation, and Steenberg has just started to demonstrate just how powerful the tools are when placed in the right hands. He might be a one-in-a-million mix of programmer and artist, but the principles of game design that he’s espousing are something all kinds of developers can put to good use.

Of course, just because you’ve mastered the shortcuts doesn’t mean the game makes itself, and Steenberg still isn’t quite sure when the game will hit. Like so much else on the indie scene, it’ll be done when it’s done.