Greedy Wizards
Mobile Action Game
Summary
Greedy wizards is 8Bit-bandits first game and I had the pleasure to work on it as an intern for half a year.
In greedy wizards players navigate dangerous dungeons with powerful wizards as a team in a gameshow setting. Players get to team up with friends and together take down hoards of enemies while searching for loot and the way out!
Project breakdown
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Online Multiplayer Action Game
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Available on android and iOS
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Made by 8Bit-Bandits a SIB studio of Wild life
My contribution
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Level design
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Prototyping
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Documentation
My time at 8Bit-Bandits (8BB)
During my seven-month internship at 8BB, I experienced significant growth as a level designer and gained valuable knowledge for my future in the industry. The company places a high value on everyone's input, by having excellent communication through collaborative work in the same room.
I felt appreciated from day one and was pleasantly surprised by the strong sense of camaraderie within the company.
One of the practices I particularly enjoyed was the daily playtest sessions. Each morning, we gathered to playtest the latest levels, features, or builds, actively seeking out bugs and brainstorming improvements.
My time at 8BB was rewarding, and I'm looking forward to see what they come up with in the future.
Designing a level in Greedy Wizards
Level design
Hook
When designing board games it often comes down to finding a hook for the game - meaning what is unique about it?
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I design levels the same way. My goal is to have every level containing something that when another co-worker describes a level to me I get happy if they mention my intended hook. Then I feel it has something special.
When designing this Dungeon of Doom level, my hook here was to give players a choice to run back and skip 2 big fights but also giving up 2 gold chests.
Story
While we design short levels meant to be completed within a minute, there's still space to tell a story, enhancing the level's authenticity and enjoyment.
This can be achieved through straightforward methods such as limiting the variety of enemies players encounter or strategically placing them. Additionally, by carefully considering the placement of covers, loot, health, etc., we can ensure that players experience a sense of accomplishment throughout each level.
What is that Jelly Skelly guarding?
Aesthetics
When designing levels, we collaborated closely with our environment artist to ensure that we utilized the assets provided to us as intended. Their assistance also contributed to maintaining the tidiness and aesthetic appeal of the levels.
Staying creative
During my time at 8BB, I designed over 200 levels, and sooner or later, you typically face a creative block. Fortunately, this was rarely the case, thanks to some tricks I learned when designing within limited areas.
One effective strategy is to preserve your ideas. Rather than cramming everything into a single room, it's far better to focus on one outstanding idea per room. Since the levels are compact, players won't notice anything remarkable if everything is extraordinary, and as a designer, I might exhaust my ideas more quickly. Additionally, I utilized a tool called the level component chart, where I organized all mechanics for a world into a grid. This allowed me to pair up different mechanics, forcing myself to think in new ways. Honestly, some of my favorite levels were created using this approach.
Game design
Keeping track
We maintained records of all the levels using various documentation methods. One document I created to provide a clearer visual overview was a file I titled "Dungeons in Pictures." In this document, I captured screenshots of the levels and included their number, difficulty level, internal name, and other details. This allowed us to quickly assess how each level appeared and proved helpful when discussing a level instead of searching for it within Unity.
Boss fights
For about a week, I was tasked with designing a boss fight, which was purely conceptual to determine if the idea suited the game.
The character assigned to me was a lightning-fast wizard, and I wanted to emphasize his speed as the main focus during the fight.
I experimented with the concept of the wizard utilizing his speed to create copies of himself, akin to Goku in Dragon Ball during his match against Tenshinhan.
To share these ideas with the rest of the team, I created a document with the concepts.
I like to use a lot of pictures in my documents to complement the text.
Beat chart
When players initially engage with the game, they encounter a predetermined series of dungeons before the rogue element kicks in. This is to control the introduction of various enemies and mechanics. To manage this process, I created a beat chart in Excel for us to experiment with and keep track of our progress.
Traps
When exploring mechanics for Tomb of Terror I worked on a trap called the spinner. When developing it, I created a blockout for testing purposes and wrote a brief document with cartoonish illustrations to visualize its functions.
One sentence from my mentor that really got to me was to give traps a personality. I found it to be brilliantly thought out, as it injects more life into elements that could otherwise feel static within the game.
Quick blockouts
Another mechanic I worked on was a barrel dropper. In Tomb of Terrors we were going to have walls that could be destroyed by explosives. So one idea was to have a machine dropping these barrels and give players agency on where to detonate them. I'm pleased that my initial blockout received significant improvements since it was initially a bit clunky.
Cherry picked levels
Thief
In Dungeons of Doom, our aim was to keep players together and ensure a linear and seamless level flow.
In this particular level, a thief steals treasures from the players, which are made more visible thanks to some elevation upon entering the dungeon. When players descend to confront the thief, they face a horde of enemies attacking from the side. After reclaiming their gold and defeating the enemies, players can progress using a key obtained from their victory, moving on to the next dungeon.
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My favorite aspects of this level were its smooth flow and movement. I appreciated its straightforward objective, and after some playtesting and iteration, we settled on a easy difficulty level.
Necromancer
Next up is a level I made for Cavern of Chaos! Our goal here was to provide players with the option to split up and explore different paths throughout the caverns.
This cavern begins with a tight corridor of chaos, where players must time their movements carefully to avoid fire-breathing traps. After navigating the first three obstacles, players can choose to either split up or stick together. The blue marks indicate teleporters, transporting players to new locations.
The final battle poses a significant challenge. If players descend to the lower level, they find themselves surrounded by tough enemies guarding keys. To add to the challenge, an annoying necromancer on the plateau above begins to regenerate the enemies. However, if any player chooses to take an alternative teleporter at the start, they'll land next to the necromancer and can immediately take it out, aiding their friends below.
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Designing for Cavern of Chaos was both enjoyable and challenging. Striking the right balance between chaos and structure required iteration and playtesting. We aimed to prevent players from becoming lost, and including no-return points, such as teleporters, was an effective way to achieve this.
Patroller
Tomb of Terrors was the final world I contributed to. We aimed for a more puzzling experience and larger combat spaces. This tomb leaned more to the first named. I particularly enjoy creating loops, and with Tomb of Terrors' destructible walls and switches, I could realize this design.
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Players begin by spotting the exit room but can't reach the switch due to a one-way ramp blocking their path. Instead, they must detonate a wall to progress. As they advance through more wall destruction, they ascend to a higher point. Here, while retrieving their treasure, they may spot a dangerous patrolling enemy below. These patrollers deal significant damage if detected, so players can either navigate around them using the sarcophagus or confront them directly—their choice dictates their path.
Eventually, players encounter a small room with a switch. Stepping on it unlocks the exit door, and a lit chord in the sand guides them toward it. Additionally, I placed two pillars in the starting room to encourage players to head towards the exit door rather than retracing their steps.
Lessons learned
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Making so many levels have really taught me a lot about the skill of finding ways to combined mechanics to make the most out of them.
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How effective a team can be when everyone's ideas are being listen too.
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The importance of playing the same level through the eyes of differently skilled players.