Manawa

Manawa is an interactive 2D puzzle platformer that lets players take control of different weather effects. Use different weather instances to solve puzzles, counter different enemy types and escape back to your reality.

See the world change before your eyes as different weather effects affect the world in different ways, enabling you to cross obstacles and move forward.

Engine

Custom Engine

Duration

6 months

Team Size

Roles and Responsibilities

Game Designer
Level Designer
Producer

Game Design Document

Download Game

My Roles

Producer

Although I took over the Producer role at the later half of the project, I had to adapt quickly to separate my designer aspect and push the team in the right direction in terms of scheduling.

I didn't really know how to do Scrum properly and my team eventually did weekly tasks meetings instead.

Level Designer / Game Designer

Before working on the Custom Engine (which took about 3 - 4 months to proper flush out), I initially did a unity prototype to show what the end product could look like.

Before knowing what to place or designing the level, I drew it all out on pen and paper. (Images on the right)

There were many iterations throughout the whole development cycle.

My team initially wanted an interactive main menu that the player could walk about in a library (it matched our story at the time). However, due to time constraints as well as design issues, we went for the simple centered main menu.

And of course, level design is never finalized on the first draft. I did a few which I thought worked out but playtests suggests otherwise.

In some cases, I was aiming to be too simplistic or really trying to teach the player through repetitive steps. Therefore, I changed certain aspects so as to introduce the player to new mechanics and yet keeping the player from burnout.