Izcalli of the Wind is a game of momentum and elegant motion designed and crafted by an interdisciplinary team of sixteen over an 8 month period. Players take on the role of Izcalli, an adept adventurer on a hoverboard relic powered by a wind god, and are tasked with restoring power to the island’s main conduit to open a path to the god’s main temple. Players must navigate the environment and complete trials by utilizing twitch skills allowing them to build and transfer energy to then be deposited into various seals, which in turn re-power the island and conduit.
Team:
Axolotl Productions
Roles:
Design Lead, Level Design, Terrain Sculpting, Set Dressing, Sequencing, Optimization
Ownership:
Forest Section, Slipstream Circuits, Sequencing
Tools:
UE4, Blueprints, Photoshop, Perforce, Jira
Asset Packs:
Mayan Temple Starter Set, Fantasy Environment, Lost Island, Stylized Desert, Lazy Godray, Advanced Magix FX 13, FX Variety Pack
Responsibilities
Effectively communicate design vision pillars for a team of 18 interdisciplinary developers including producers, designers, artists, and engineers, and ensure they were upheld through reviews and discussions
Establish a cohesive workflow and constraints for level design team by creating pipelines and standards used for review/approval process
Create and test action-blocks to utilize and understand limits of game’s mechanics and refine player experience by iterating designs based on playtesting data
Sculpt terrain of entire map to accommodate graceful flow for fast-paced hoverboard gameplay
Forest section/drifting challenge design, proxying, and set dressing
Use spline tool to create slipstream paths and communicate with tech designer on ways to improve it per level designer needs
Kit-bash proxy assets to be used as templates for art team to build from and optimize
Make optimization passes based on restraints provided by programming team