Izcalli of the Wind

Core Contributions

Overview

Izcalli of the Wind was the capstone project for my Master’s degree. I worked alongside an interdisciplinary team of 18 to create this high-speed, action game. From very early on we as a team agreed that we wanted to make a game with a strong sense of movement to complement the team’s composition. One idea lead to another, and eventually we came together under our design lead with the concept of a hoverboard action game set in an Aztec inspired fantasy world.

Design

Following our team’s commitment to movement, we ended up taking a lot of inspiration from games like Sonic, Jet Set Radio, Mario Kart, and various racing games. We wanted to create abilities and systems that gave the player the sense of flow, which meant we wanted to make sure our character felt fluid and nimble. Instead of using Unreal Engine’s vehicle systems, our lead programmer decided to directly simulate the hoverboard using 3D forces. to achieve that feeling. This created a lot of challenges in developing the movement systems of the game, but working alongside him we were able to develop a slew of physics corrections that made for a pretty smooth ride.

Alongside assisting with physics, I was also tasked with creating Izcalli’s primary abilities for traversal. Going back to the idea of flow, I ended up developing the energy system within the game. Using this the player would be able to access special abilities for Izcalli such as boosting, shooting, and charged jump. We decided to balance this by encouraging the player to maintain their flow to gain more energy, so by holding high speeds, performing drifts, and tricks.

Development

On this project I was in a position where I could contribute both to the design and programming of the project. My main role was as a gameplay programmer in which I created the various abilities and systems Izcalli used to traverse the map. I worked in both C++ and Blueprints to enable, test, and balance these features to achieve a good game feel. I established the control layout for our game on both gamepad and keyboard and mouse. I also worked with integrating various assets from the rest of the team with character systems, such as sounds, visual effects, and animations.

Besides work contributions, I also had a very proactive presence in the social aspects of our team. From early on I did my best to connect with my fellow teammates and acted as both a friend and mediator during conflicts. During the rougher periods of our project when tensions amongst the team seemed to wearing at our progress, I took the initiative to get everyone on the same page by forcing some of those difficult conversations. Overall my goal was to act as that catalyst to bring my team closer, and my contributions seemed to do a lot for the team’s morale.