https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abx2nYnEoWc&t=55s
Ozamanás is a 2D strategy game about the ecological destruction of the amazon rainforest.
The game has been the recipient of 4 different grants from the government of Colombia.
It shares gameplay elements with Tower Defense games (e.g. the goal of protecting a spot from constantly spawning waves of enemies).
But aims at deepening the strategic role of players through the addition of resource management and replacing set enemy paths with an adapting AI.
The game has undergone multiple iterations since its inception. It started its life as a game where players tried to balance weather and dietary needs of plants and animals to sustain life, with some small influence from humans in the form of pollution. This concept won an initial grant and went into alpha.
It then turned into a faster paced game in which humans expanded rapidly through the rainforest and players needed to rush to match animal diets to produce points that would allow them to quickly block choke points on the map.
It was at this point that the team tried pitching the game to publishers and received a harsh but necessary criticism.
The game had no room to grow. It had reached the edge of what could be explored with its current design, but it didn’t feel balanced, it seemed arbitrary whether players would win or lose, and its design felt more like a race against time, than a strategic balance of overlapping factors. Worse of all, it wasn’t fun.
All of this led to a complete overhaul of mechanics and focus for the game, which started with the definition of the core gameplay loop and the development of a Minimum Viable Product.
I started work at the studio as a 2D animator, but during this overhaul I asked to participate actively in the collaborative design that was emerging. I initially proposed we started work making a quick paper prototype, and made a few illustrations to represent core mechanics. Since we are a completely remote studio, someone else suggested we do the ‘paper prototype’ using Google Slides, where we could move objects around simultaneously in virtual space. These were some of the initial test that led to the MVP
During this time, I continued working as an animator, but also started taking on some game design responsibilities. I designed maps (as I had done for previous versions of the game) and pitched mechanics for the growing prototype.
When we felt the prototype was ready, I led playtesting sessions with external testers, designed questionnaires and systematized results to inform design decisions. All of this was then developed into a MVP, a turn-based, tower-defense inspired game in which you defend the ‘Heart of the Rainforest’ against waves of voracious ‘Human Machines’ using powerful ‘Ancient Forces’.
When we reached this point, we also received additional funding in the form of a grant from the government of Colombia, which allowed us to upsize and finally have a long-needed design role at the studio. I immediately asked to take over said role.
My first task was creating the first Game Design Document for the game, a crucial task which had been postponed due to always being rushed and stretched thin to meet previous grant milestones.