I regularly get asked how the overworld is generated. I actually started writing it up in a series of blog posts here on bytten-studio.com last year, but it became difficult to keep this up to date with the implementation. The implementation was changing too much and too often!

Things have stabilized somewhat now, so in this two-post series I’ll give an overview of how the procedural generation in Lenna’s Inception works. I’ll skip over some of the details to keep the length down, but if you need more detail on something specific for your own project(s), I’m more than happy to help you. Feel free to contact me on twitter or by email, but please try to understand that my time is very limited!

How is Lenna’s Inception different?

Procedural map generation in contemporary video games tends to fall into two categories:

• Sequential levels with limited procedural generation, e.g. rectangular rooms and long-thin corridors (Rogue), or stitching together hand-designed templates and setpieces (Binding of Isaac, Spelunky).
• Open, non-linear worlds with very few setpieces, but where the procgen system has a huge degree of freedom and can automatically produce variety (Minecraft).

Lenna’s Inception doesn’t really fit neatly into either of those, because while it’s linear, it doesn’t rely heavily on hand-designed room templates. It takes the linear gameplay of the first category and and increases the degree of freedom of the procgen system to a level comparable to the second category.

Let’s start by taking a look at the design of some of the most closely-related games that use procedural generation and randomization.

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