Woozy Wizards
Made In: Unity; C#
Date: Fall 2015
Group Size: 4
Woozy Wizards is a 3rd person party game designed around wonky controls. In the game players compete against eachother to accomplish task, and against their own characters while trying to make their character do what they want.
Initial Concept
The core design of Woozy Wizards started as a comical challenge, a type of party game where just the act of interracting with the game itself becomes interesting. This first prototype captured a lot of positive enthusieasm and even during presentations people were hard pressed not to laugh.
A major portion of the production time went into refining this movement system, and despite the wacky apperance and erratic movement, the character still remains controlable and the camera remains stable regardless of how the wizard moves.
Support Systems
Multiple systems make Woozy Wizards what it is. At the core is the puppet, a ragdoll that is held up by healium in its torso. The limbs are individually pulled around based on user input and while moving it creates a challenging yet enjoyable movement.
The camera was a major challenge as the wizard never remains still enough to have a fixed anchor. The camera instead focuses on a point placed halfway between the wizards feet, and has its height offset based on the height of the lowest foot. This lets the camera maintain a clear view on the wizard, even during back-flips, chaotic explosions, and casual strolls down town.
As these are wizards we also introduced spells. In order to have a large range of spells, and therefore a much more, unpredictable game, we opted to have a potion combination system for spell selection. Rather than having in world pick-ups for each spell, we instead had four potions and both having taken no potion, one potion, or any combination of two, we could access a total of 25 spells from just 4 objects in the world.
This combination system also added experimentation, which encouraged players to try different things and added a layer to the game where they would want to fight over potions, both to aid themselves and block their opponants from the combinations they may be trying to create.