Electric Groove Wizard

Role

Level designer, blocking, set dressing

get the game!
 

Date

November 2024

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Details

The game that won the LaSalle game jam 2024. Electric groove wizard is an easy game, you run around as a wizard with a magical device and turning off any lights you see, because the wizard is tired of all the light pollution. The jam's theme was dystopia/climate change, with this game we went with a wittier way of tackling the subject, your goal is to turn off every light so that you can see the night sky again!

 

Tools used

Unreal engine 5
Maya
Substance painter

Development as a level designer

With only 24 hours me and my team knew we could not waste too much time figuring out what we wanted. Simple for sure for anyone who as been to other jams before, however the theme was a tricky one, not as in difficult more so, how can I portray dystopia and climate change (two serious subject) effectively in 24 hours for game?

That is when we realized and decided that we should focus more on fun and then tie the theme into it, as it slowed us down and the idea of EGW as born.

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With a simple concept and mechanics, our proficiency in programming and 2 talented and fast modelers, there was no doubt in my mind that the game would be good, I guess the only issue would be; would I be able to keep up with the team as it sole member who will dedicate all his time to build the level? Turns out, it wasn't an issue, our communication was perfect, and I had Owen Bowie (the other level designer) on the side giving an outside perspective, a second opinion essentially, having two minds into one level when he had a few seconds to breathe.

 

Before starting the level, we agreed on a condominium and already my vision was set. A square shaped gated community with 30-40% space used by suburban houses the rest tall apartment buildings. This gated community surrounded North-east-south-west by the dark, bleak metropolitan city with power plants here and there spuing thick smoke. 

 

With the city that's where I wanted the dystopian feel to be in it's design, it's built in a way to give the feeling that the player could be in the dead center and a gigantic city and they'll never know for sure because of how everything around them is big, could very well be a city that goes on forever.

I first started making the plot of land deciding which size I want, once that's done I lay the streets then their respected sidewalks. When I am satisfied, I used the rest of the empty space as housing space, I divided them in three types: houses, apartments and mixed. Mixed spaces would have both apartments and houses in the same space. the rest was small but necessary, because I really wanted to make seemed people lived there (especially considering the enemies that spawn) so I later placed parking lots streetlamps, AC units stuck on some apartments and cars parked frustratingly badly.

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The player's magical remote can reach around one-third of the condominium's length, hence for the house areas I did not place them in a row, I instead placed them like a maze. The reasoning behind it was it forces the player to go around the map in search of these houses and not just stand in a point on the map and snipe every house with easy. We wanted to make an easy game NOT a boring one.

 

Now if I were to revisit this game with my team, I would certainly make changes and/or added some other thing I did not in the 24-hour development time. I would make the side walks better not the model itself but how they are place some curbs lay one on top of others, there is also something I did do but for some reason is not in the final game as I am aware, grass. I have placed some grass foliage so that the green material used next to the house do not look bland, it was a nice detail that unfortunately did not get pushed on perforce properly. Lastly using the weak maze-like pattern of the house placements against the players, they need to be quick on their feet, otherwise be surrounded by angry not-so-groovy people! This was in all honesty due to the lack of time I had, so in the end we decide to make it able for the player to run through enemies to avoid complications with this not fully realized aspect of the game.

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Thank you for reading please check out the talented people I worked with!​
 

The people I worked with

Owen Bowie - Lead Game Design, Programmer, Level Design, SFX
Santiago Franco - Programmer, Game Design, UI/UX Design, VFX
Barbara Beltran - 3D Modeling, Texturing, Level Artist
Hatim Aallam - 3D Modeling, Texturing, Level Artist