Malefica

Malefica is a stealth-based arcade game of suspicion and misdirection. Play as an evil witch getting revenge on a mistrustful town. Raise villager paranoia by hexing others and leaving talismans on their doorstep until they will burn anyone you accuse. But, be careful not to be found out yourself or you will face the same fate.

This project was created in under 48 hours as a game jam submission. Malefica was my first time working on a personal project with another game designer, so I let him take the lead on mechanics and gameplay, where I focused on managing the rest of the team, assisting the programmers, and the artistic direction. I got to play around a lot with using post processing, VFX, and audio in order to cultivate an uneasy and eerie experience. With such a large team in a game jam context, I spent a large portion of my time checking in with each team member across all domains giving feedback, guiding next steps, helping solve problems, and adjusting the plan.

Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the project within the time frame because my team was also volunteering at the game jam and were pulled away from development during the last hours of the competition. However, this experience taught me a lot about artistic direction, scoping, and managing a large team.