Alwan

Third Person
3D platformer

Made in
1 month

A game where you bring color back to the world

Context

Alwan is my end-of-2nd year project made in Unreal Engine 5 which consisted in making the vertical slice of a 3D platformer in 1 month.

In this game, you play as Zahra who has to bring color back to a cursed Moroccan city. In order to achieve this goal, you explore the city doing parkour, jumping from one roof to another, climbing houses and activating crystals.

Role

I worked as a Game designer on this project designing the mechanics, tweaking the metrics.

I also implemented SFXs and music.

Game Design

For this project, I used a rather uncomon method to build the Game Design. I began with Technology! I watched an Unreal Engine conference at GDC in which they presented a shader desaturating the environnement. I told myself "why won't we build the game concept around it ?".
We therefore built the Game Design around this concept.

The constraints of this project was to make a 3D platformer including a climbing mechanic, I therefore analyzed some 3D platformer games or games implementing platforming and climbing elements to build the game (Uncharted, Assassin's creed, Mario 64...).
I designed some very simple and common mechanics for the game because we wanted to focus on the narrative aspect and the environnement.

Walk

I designed the walk for the player to move slowly through the level to admire the environnement but also for the player to be precise in their movements.

Climbing

I designed the climbing to add more verticality to the level since we decided to have the village on the mountainside which matched the initial constraint of climbing.
I also left the player the ability to jump while climbing to reinforce the verticality aspect and the feeling of reaching higher ground.

Color mechanic

I designed it mainly for its narrative and artistic aspect, having these wow moments when revealing the colors of a district. I also used it to justify activating mechanism such as doors when colored.
We loved the symbolism of bringing life back by coloring the world and therefore reactiving things.

Run

I designed the run for the player to be able to move rapidly through the level and for him to be able to combine it with the jump mechanic to reach distant platforms.

Jump

I designed the jump to add more verticality like the climbing mechanic and I made it so the player could use it in different context to add diversity through the level and elegance (making a mechanic having multiple usage depending on context : walk-jump, run-jump, climb-jump...).

Crystals

I designed the crystals to be micro-objectives that motivates the player to progress through the level and guides them since they're used to open the level-end door.

Gameplay video

Post mortem

The shader as a starting point wasn't a bad idea but I did not use it as the core mechanic of the game ending up with a simple platforming game that has an interesting visual style.
If I had to remake the game, I would make a puzzle platformer using the color mechanic as the core gameplay leading the player to think about which zones to color and when to activate the mechanisms and progress through the level.

Another issue we had was communication. At the start, I was in charge of the Level Design but the team's expectations and mine were different. I was making a linear game whereas the team wanted a more open space so we ended up in a conflict. And since we were close to the end of the project, everyone was involved in the Level Design. In the end, due to a lack of skills in this field, the team was unable to offer the open experience. It taught me that for my next project, I should communicate better with the team to clearly define an achievable goal based on everyone's intentions and expectations.

Credits

Game Designer - Baurain Ilan (me)
3D artist - Ben-Hafsa Aymen
3D artist - Chahid Adam
2D artist - Ardouin Maëlys
Animator/Lighting artist - Co Elsa
Programmer - Ceneda Sacha
Programmer/Shaders/Level Design - Bellio Enzo