Bluecadet took over the eko Engineering blog to talk about our work on Wizard School Dropout. An excerpt is below. Read the full post here.
Wizard School Dropout is a choice-driven comedy about Andy, a young witch who defies her parents, quits Glimdrang Academy, and has to figure life out in non-magical Los Angeles. But since Glimdrang doesn’t really prepare you for things like getting a job or paying rent, Andy needs viewers’ help navigating work, friendships, spells, and preventing a little bro-pocalypse — all before losing a piece of her soul to her creepy landlord.
Wizard School Dropout is a collaboration among eko, Walmart, and EffinFunny. The Bluecadet team was tasked with the design, game mechanics, user flow, motion design, and development of the show.
What do game mechanics and user flow have to do with creating a comedy?
Wizard School Dropout is not your average TV show. It’s a choice-driven video series on the web. Viewers have to decide Andy’s next moves, help her cast spells by playing mini-games, and collect magical artifacts. How well they do this determines what powers Andy develops, how much money she makes, and the nature of her relationships. Wizard School Dropout is part live-action show, part game, and the users are part viewer, part player.
Creating this sort of complex yet immersive entertainment experience was not easy. There’s practically an infinite number of Wizard School Dropout versions one can play through.
Beyond storylines we also had to tackle some significant technological and logistical challenges to pull everything off.