CARDBOARD WIZARD
ABOUT
This is it! You've finally graduated from wizardy school and been given your first assignment as a real world magical hero. The task? Well, something fishy has been going on at one of Amazon's main delivery warehouses. It's your job to infiltrate the place as a worker and figure out what shady business is taking place. But watch out! Don't let Bezos find you -- there's a rumor that he hasn't quite been feeling like himself lately.
Cardboard Wizard is a single player platformer that blends a 3D environment with 2D characters and assets. Your wizard's special power is the ability to manipulate the dimensions of cardboard boxes, a particularly useful skill for the job. Your job is to push, pull, and transform boxes to make your way through the surprisingly dark and dusty warehouse, through the main offices, and finally up to Upper Management headquarters. There you must escape the powerful ghost of Bezos to make it out alive.
GAME SCENES
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MY ROLE
Cardboard Wizard was made by a small team of three, which gave me the opportunity to oversee a range of tasks, including:
Player Onboarding
In this game, I experimented with communicating instructions in visual ways, integrating the tutorial into the environment instead of relying on instructional pop up bubbles or character conversations. Guidance on moving, pushing and pulling boxes, and using your wand to manipulate the length and height of boxes was portrayed using corporate style posters, with a touch of tongue-in-cheek motivational humor.
Tutorial Level Design
I also focused on integrating tutorial moments into the main level design, with the goal of creating learning moments that felt seamless with the rest of the narrative instead of pulling players out of the game world. Players had to practice and master box-related mechanics to continue progressing through the game.
Character Art & Animation
To add a touch of comedy to our main hero, I designed a character wearing half wizard robes, half amazon warehouse uniform. I used a blend of browns and blues to help the character pop out from the dark, gray environment behind him. I then animated the character using 2D hand drawn animation.
General Programming
All members of the team played a role in programming the game. Generally speaking, I addressed triggers, animations, camera transitions, and mechanics that allowed boxes to be pushed, pulled, and manipulated.
