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Short summary of the core gameplay and mechanics;

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  1. The player manipulates objects and enemies by either pushing them away, or pulling them in.

  2. Moving or using telekinesis once counts as one action.

  3. The player has a limited number of actions at their disposal to solve the puzzle (the number depends on the level). 

  4. Levels are completed by handling all obstacles* and carrying out than the max number of actions, OR less.​

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*IF there are enemies on the level all of them must be defeated. If there is a locked door on the map it needs to be unlocked, etc.

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Wizard's Way Out

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Kikimora Games first official game release, initially released on itch.io (for free), and then later expanded upon and re-released on itch.io and Steam.

 

WWO is a Sokoban-style puzzle game about a failed wizard using telekinesis to push and pull their way out of a puzzling underground prison.

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On this game I did Game Design, Level Design, Art, Animation and Writing.

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This type of level and puzzle design was completely new to me and although it was challenging at first I eventually managed to wrap my head around it and find a workflow and mindset that worked well for creating levels.​​

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When it came to the puzzle creation process I would always start off drawing a map concept on paper, trying to solve the puzzle in my head, moving things around and doing adjustments along the way until arriving at something interesting gameplay-wise. I found that it often was easier to start off from the end and then work my way backwards to the starting position of the puzzle.

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Even before we had a working digital prototype I started testing paper puzzles on friends and family, asking them to try and solve it while I observed closely and asked them to "think out loud" while I took notes. I learned a ton from this and early on rigorous playtesting became an integral and crucial part of the development of this game. Playtesting was incredibly useful when it came to e.g. estimating the difficulty of the levels (which helped out with finalizing the level order) as well as identifying unintentional solutions and flaws in the level design that would allow players to circumvent the intended experience and/or greatly negate the challenge. 

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I found that seemingly tiny adjustments could have a considerable impact on how a level played, both good and bad. This meant that iteration on the levels had to be done very carefully and mindfully, and with a lot of testing.

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Since we did not have an artist on the team at the time of developing this game this project became my debut as a game artist. As someone who's been drawing on an almost daily basis since early childhood I've always wanted to try this hat on I must say it was a ton of fun!

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I found that there were certain benefits to being the artist while at the same time being the game designer and level designer. Being the one specifying and requesting the art, and also being the one tasked with producing it, allowed me to produce just the types of assets I wanted and needed, complimenting the design from a visual standpoint, and aligning with the design intent and vision.

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It is important to know ones limitations, and not being a professional artist I had to be smart with how I approached this task. This was especially true for the animation which could easily have become a very time consuming endeavor. Thus, I figured it was best to keep things simple. I ended up doing short, frame by frame animations where I would redraw the same sprite ~4 times by hand, and then loop them, resulting in a jittery aesthetic that we fully embraced for everything.

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All of the art, animations and UI were hand drawn by me on a reMarkable (1) E-Ink tablet. ​​Later, for the re-release of the game when Samuel Modig had joined the team he was tasked with revisiting some of the art assets, polishing them up, adding shading as well adding some new art like e.g. two new enemies, achievements, etc.

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©2017 Tomas Lundgren

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