Take the upcoming online game Love (shown here), due out later this year. Around 100 players will be able to explore the virtual world together, establish towns, and fight monsters. And its impressionistic watercolor environment was created by an army of one, Swedish coder Eskil Steenberg.

Love's world starts as a generic landscape divided into almost 100,000 blocks. "The game's engine uses an algorithm to turn the blocks into hills, valleys, and oceans," Steenberg says — a method called procedural generation. It then examines the terrain and adds bridges, tunnels, and buildings to ensure that each area is interesting and accessible. Once the world is created, it can still be modified. "It's like a Lego kit that both the players and the game itself can use," he says. Players can rearrange trees and boulders, reconfigure buildings, or hollow out new caves in hillsides. The gorgeous vistas are also subject to natural phenomena like erosion, thanks to Steenberg's tectonics system.

Love's vast, morphing creation demonstrates how one man can become like a god — he sets the world in motion and lets simple rules, random numbers, and inhabitants do the rest.

Gallery: 'Love' — The One-Man Multiplayer World:

Although Love’s environment was created by an army of one — Swedish coder Eskil Steenberg, armed with an algorithm called procedural generation — about 100 players will be able to explore this virtual world together, establish towns, and fight monsters.

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Steenberg has a rare gift for both the art and the science of creating modern videogames. The most obvious strengths of his design are the astounding, impressionistic visuals. The world is dusky and smoky, or bright and watery, all within the same mysterious abstract scheme.

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By creating landscapes mathematically, Steenberg avoids spending the vast man-hours that are normally sunken into creating immersive game worlds. This means he can get on with tweaking the gameplay.

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Steenberg's experience in creating tools software has allowed him to create his own general toolset, which he's using for the creation of Love. One of his main concerns? Making accessible, easy-to-use tools that will work for geeks and artists alike.

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Steenberg's 3-D modeling tools allow for playful manipulation of multi-dimensional objects. The clickable interface makes modeling, deforming, and reworking 3-D aesthetics remarkably easy, which ties into Steenberg's personal philosophy: The more fun the tools are to use, the more productive the user will be.

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Players will be expected to work together to build and defend small towns, as well as explore the larger world around them. The feel of the play is expected to be as freeform as the look of the game. The story will seamlessly unfold through the choices players make as they interact with the monsters and in-game items.

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Love players will be able to carve out caves, build stairways up mountainsides, and generally interact with their world on a “physical� level.

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How Love will develop once the game begins will all depend on the players’ actions. Steenberg is eager to see what they come up with.

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Steenberg's auto-generated game world looks more like a Monet painting than one of the heavily hand-crafted worlds gamers are accustomed to.

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Steenberg's work is entirely open source and will be available to be downloaded from his site (quelsolaar.com).

At E3, Insiders Thrive as Booth Babes Go Extinct: Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

LOS ANGELES -- The videogame industry struts its stuff each year at E3, but the party is decidedly more intimate than it used to be.

Formerly known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual conference now dubbed the E3 Media & Business Summit has evolved from a public event that drew tens of thousands of gamers to an invitation-only dog-and-pony show for videogame journalists and industry insiders. Unlike the old days, this year's E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center is short on booth babes and swag.

Still, heavy hitters like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony pulled out all the stops as they tried to pique journalists' interests. Here's a peek behind the scenes at the event, which ends Thursday.

Left: Gunnar Johannson of Swedish gamemaker Grin takes a call Wednesday from his mother in Sweden. She had not heard from him in a couple of days and wanted to make sure he was OK. Not to worry -- he has his Bionic Commando promotional arm to protect him.

Ryan Treit, a reporter for Xbox.com from Seattle, is the lone rider (besides the photographer) on Shuttle Bus No. 3 late Tuesday afternoon. The shuttle carries E3 attendees from the Los Angeles Convention Center to the hotels that house them.

Tracey Thompson, PR consultant for Bethesda Software, is watched over Wednesday by a member of the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout 3.

The Neversoft Band plays Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" Tuesday night as Activision shows Guitar Hero World Tour to the world for the first time in a former Los Angeles church.

Louis Bedigian, freelance journalist, left, and Ryan Geddes, associate editor of IGN Xbox, type away Wednesday outside Nintendo's media booth.

John Drake demonstrates Rock Band 2 on MTV Games' backroom stage Wednesday. The booth, fully stocked with aftermarket toys like an Alesis electronic drum kit, was the music gamer's ultimate dream venue.

Nyko appears to be the only company at E3 that still hires booth babes. Casey Dee, left, and Bernard Hoang show off their musical talents Wednesday morning as Michelle Ballee works the bar in the background.

The registration line at the Los Angeles Convention Center is a shadow of its former self Wednesday. Unlike in years gone by, it was a breeze to pick up press credentials every day in 2008.

Red velvet curtains, Christmas-style lights and blue mood lighting set the tone in the Nintendo press room.