Role
Game & Level Designer
Team
Oblongata Games (see full list of team members here)
Platform
Android
Date
December 2019
The Game
To Ashes is a Game about the adventure of a girl made of fire. The core loop of the game is that you dash through the twisted corridors of her parents sinister mansion, as you solve environmental puzzle and avoid traps. As you dash, she expels some of her fire in order to move and break through objects in the environment. In order to regain her fire she will have to burn through objects in the environment. Since she is made of fire she can also attach herself to objects in the environment, such as long hair strands from a huge monument to her mother.
Nominated for the Public Choice Award at the 16th IGMA, 2020.
My Role
During the production of this game I was a Game Designer and Level Designer.
As Game Designer I focused on designing the mechanics of the game, what the game should be, and building it, as well as communicating all of these designs to the other departments in close collaboration with the Game Director and 2 other Game Designers. We also worked in close collaboration with the programmers to create designer tools, so that we could easier build up the game in Unity, which was our responsibility. Further I had the responsibility of making good game feel and designing and implementing feedback, with a huge focus on the dashes and movement of the main character. I also worked on adding story to the game as well as creating cutscenes.
As Level Designer I did a lot of world building and designs for how we could create good interesting levels and puzzles, through the use of Rational Level Design, in order to teach the players the mechanics, challenging them while also maintaining a good difficulty curve. I was further part of defining the mood, themes, structure and contents of the different levels, with the Art Director, as well as designing ingredients to challenge the player. I had a great responsibility in creating the tutorial and hub, which teaches the player how to play, solely through the level design. As Level Designer it was also my responsibility to grey box, prototype and iterate on the different level ideas and challenges, as well as fine-tuning and set dressing them.
Level Designs
In-game Screenshots
