A Uruguayan videogame selected as one of the eight best games at the most significant global conference in the gaming industry

Uruguay attended the most significant global industry event, the Game Developers Conference (GDC), where the game Evil Wizard by the Uruguayan studio Rubber Duck received an important award.

This year eleven studios were able to take part in the event thanks to the investment, export, and country image promotion agency, Uruguay XXI, that set up a country stand to showcase the work that happens in the industry and its sales and to foster investments for the studios, and to the Uruguayan Chamber of Video Game Developers (CAVI for its acronym in Spanish), which provided 10 All Access passes.

All this led to the nomination of Evil Wizard, which was chosen among the eight best games by participants from all over the world. One of the requirements to be considered was that the game had to be tested in person at GDC.

According to the game creators, this recognition acknowledges the game, the studio’s work, and the Uruguayan industry, which had already been making good headway thanks to the creation of several of its professionals.

“It gives us credibility with the publishers, it allows us to show our value, and helps start conversations differently. Some people contact us because they saw us at GDC,” explained Gonzalo Banki Martínez, Game Designer and producer for Rubber Duck.

“CAVI and organizations like Uruguay XXI are constantly opening doors for developers like us to have more opportunities to get ahead. Today, many of us in the industry found out that games could be made here thanks to success stories like Kingdom Rush, Bullet Boy, and Mars: Mars, among other Uruguayan games”, added Diego Ordóñez, the programmer at Rubber Duck.

Rubber Duck studio opened its doors in 2020 and has received multiple nominations at several events for Evil Wizard. This is the first time it won an award, and according to its creators, it will strongly support the following actions. 

What was new about Rubber Duck’s Evil Wizard game?

With the action and adventure genre as its flagship, Rubber Duck sought to innovate in the narrative, aiming heavily at humor. “These aspects have helped us make Evil Wizard stand out from the beginning,” said Diego Ordóñez, programmer at Rubber Duck.

The game, a funny role-playing game (RPG), aims to show what happens to a final boss after being defeated by the classic heroes of other games. Relying on popular culture references, including games and movies, and referencing other games from the ’80s and ’90s, the developers tried to give a new twist to storytelling in video games. “Since we know humor is not universal, we deeply emphasized gameplay. If the humor doesn’t grab the player, they can skip it and continue playing for the action, the bosses, the gameplay mechanics, and exploring the world we created,” he explained.

It is a game designed for gamers in pixel art, with multiple elements and a character who knows he is in a videogame and constantly talks to the player with much interaction.

Evil Wizard is currently on the way to being released on all consoles in the first half of the year.

The development team includes Diego Ordóñez, in charge of narrative design and programming, Ruben Gómez, who was responsible for the artistic design, including game environments and character aesthetics, Pablo Pérez, who designed the characters; Sergio Wajswol was in charge of special effects design, Haakon Davidson created sound design and music, and Gonzalo Banki Martínez designed all combat and most of the levels.