John Campbell
Triangular Pixels
John Campbell has been a professional games programmer since 2004, bringing two decades of experience across AAA blockbusters and innovative indie titles. Specializing in gameplay, online systems, and tools, John has worked with a variety of in-house engines and Unity3D, developing for consoles, PC, mobile, AR, and VR platforms.
Since 2014, John has served as Technical Director at Triangular Pixels, where he oversees the technical vision and execution of award-winning projects. In this role, he combines his deep technical expertise with leadership responsibilities, managing teams, projects, and budgets to deliver polished and innovative gaming experiences. His decisions often have a critical impact, not just on the technical performance of a game, but on the player experience, team dynamics, and the studio’s success.
A lifelong gamer, John became a "gaming dad" in 2019, navigating the unique challenges of balancing fatherhood, game development, and business leadership. This fresh perspective has further informed his approach to user experience and accessibility, helping him craft games that are both engaging and inclusive.
As a driving force behind Triangular Pixels, John is passionate about pushing the boundaries of interactive entertainment and sharing his wealth of knowledge with the wider game development community.
John Campbell is speaking at the following session/s
From Constraints to Creativity: The Art and Science of Procedural Level Design
Procedural level generation is more than just a clever algorithm—it’s a tool for unlocking creativity, streamlining workflows, and delivering unique player experiences. In this session, we’ll take you behind the scenes of Unseen Diplomacy 2 to showcase the innovative design and development of its procedural level generation system.
The key design constraints that made procedural generation the right choice will be shared and we’ll explore how we structured a system that puts control into the hands of designers and artists. You’ll see how this approach not only fosters creativity but also makes procedural systems accessible and adaptable for teams of any size or composition.
We’ll break down the graph-based workflows that formed the foundation of our system, offering insights into making complex tools intuitive for designers while retaining technical control. We’ll discuss practical lessons learned, from prototyping to production, and how these workflows can be applied across different game genres.
The session will also cover integrating QA into procedural pipelines, focusing on how to create meaningful, actionable feedback loops and tackle the unique challenges of debugging dynamic content.
Finally, we’ll share a case study of the custom tools we developed, revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how these lessons can help you wrangle the complexity of procedural systems in your own projects.
Whether you’re a programmer, designer, or tools specialist, this talk will equip you with the strategies and insights to make procedural generation a core part of your creative toolkit.
Session Takeaway
- A data oriented method for procedural level designs that encourages collaboration between programmers, designers and artists - allowing creatives to direct the level and be creative
- Lessons learnt taking a prototype to production quality and the tooling built along the way
- How to wrangle the complexity of a procedural system, the extra challenges it brings and how to adapt it to your team size
Session speakers
