Imvi: Echoes of Harmony

Game Trailer

Role: Lead Level Designer,

Audio Engineer

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

Team Size: 23

Development Time: 7 months

Platforms: PC, Steamdeck

Swing your way through a mystical and shattered alien world using the attractive force of singularities and discover the story of the people that lived here and the secrets it holds.

Responsibilities

Lead Level Designer:

Oversaw all environmental design and system integration for the open-world environment.
Responsible for coordinating designer tasks through Jira.

Audio Engineer:

Integrated the entire audio system into game.
Responsible for track transitions, voice-over implementation, and audio balancing.

Developer Interview

Gallery

Features

Three distinct regions, containing 6 unique islands each.
Fully Localized in English, Spanish, and Simple Chinese.
- Includes localized Voiceover.
Original Soundtrack.
Swing around the world and the void using the gravitational force of a black hole.
Localized gravity for each island.

Design Pillars

Zen-like, Fluid Experience

The game is offers your to slow down and take your time playing.

Relaxed and Rhythmic Movement

The movement is easy to understand and use effectively.

Wonder-filled Exploration

A visually stunning alien world filled with unique landscapes and structures.

Postmortem

What Went Well

Agile Development
- From our initial pitch as a gravity-based puzzle/platformer to our final iteration of a slow, intentional experience, we remained agile throughout development to “find the fun.”

Personal Ownership
- Level designers were given the freedom to create the islands however they pleased, with general guidelines for the themes of each region and feedback given to help effectively position and design each island.

What I Learned

Accountability of Tasks
- While it was great to have a more open ended game that required less oversight of designers, it still meant staying on top of tasks in Jira and ensuring designers had tasks and were actually working on those tasks.

What Went Wrong

Overscoping
- Scope was an issue throughout the first half or so of the project. With the team's excitement to create such an abstract game, multiple different features were originall planned. It resulted in us cutting less desirable planned features and trimming down the game from being a puzzle-platformer to a more experiential and narrative driven game.

Jordan Rauch

Game & Systems Designer