GDC 2025 Session Viewer
Procedural Generation with Design in Mind for 'LEGO® Horizon Adventures'
Michael Boyle (Senior Engineer, Studio Gobo)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Programming
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: Intermediate
LEGO Horizon Adventures is narrative-led with procedurally generated adventures; designers apply constraints to direct player experiences, and the procedural system explores the possibility space to strike a balance between replayable and cohesive gameplay.
Michael Boyle (Senior Engineer) will discuss the lessons Studio Gobo learned integrating traditional designer workflows with a campaign assembled from procedural components; he will discuss the benefits and pitfalls of this modular content. The talk will cover the tools for level and quest designers to generate, validate, and review their work in a variety of contexts, with suggested best practices for granular but readable feedback. It will also cover the tools used to analyze variety, 'difference' and content utilization across many generated playthroughs, and how this analysis fed into iterating the content.
Takeaway
Attendees will gain insight into the challenges faced and the tools developed integrating traditional level designer workflows with procedural content in LEGO Horizon Adventures. They will also learn how the team gathered broad data on procedural output and how that data was used to iterate the game as a whole.
Intended Audience
This presentation is intended for mid to senior level programmers, particularly those that work on internal tooling. It is likely that technically minded level or quest designers will also find it beneficial.