Astral Tides is a game made in 10 weeks with a team of 8 for the 2016 edition of the Ubisoft Montreal Game Lab Competition, as well as my University Graduation/Synthesis project.
I served as the project’s Game Designer and Producer, as well as Graphic Designer, Interface Designer and Level Designer.
The objective of the contest was to create a game with specific constraints:
The main theme was ‘Ocean’. Furthermore, we were required to have 2 systems and 3 mechanics that interact with each other, as well as physics, Artificial Intelligence, checkpoints and at least 10 minutes of gameplay.
The game won Best Art Direction and the most nominations amongst all the games (6 out of 8 categories):
Best Prototype
Best Game Design
Best Quality of the "3Cs" (Camera, Control, Character)
Best User Experience
Best Creativity and Integration of the Theme
Best Art Direction
Astral Tides is a third-person contemplative adventure game in which you play as Qilak, the celestial guardian, who comes down to earth to retrieve stars fallen from constellations. In Qilak’s wolf shape, you have the ability to howl at the moon to control the water tides.
The particularity of the game is that everything (especially the water) is physics based, which creates interesting and emergent gameplay. The buoyancy is simulated by real water physics calculations in order to make the blocks float naturally, the currents apply lateral forces on the blocks and Qilak also uses forces when pushing/pulling them.
