WEEKLY UPDATE! - let's talk about the art direction! (Patreon)

We did it! We made the full doc asking for funding to write this game!

Here's a screenshot showing our emotional state just after hitting "send":

BUT! We weren't done showing off all the little bits of it. Today I'll go over the art direction, mostly in a similar way to the past couple weeks: screenshot followed by a little translation of the page for those of you that do not speak french. We'll share the full document once we have an answer from the CNC (somewhere in july if all goes according to plan)

Here we go!

Visual inspirations:

The game's visuals are inspired by medieval embroideries & cross stitch. The perspectives may be hasardous, with lots of repeated motifs and strange creatures.

Cross stitch is a sort of pixel art, but with a visible texture and stitch type variations.

A couple examples:- the perspective & motifs of the "tapisserie de l'Apocalypse d'Angers"- creatures & style of the "dame à la licorne" tapestry- cross stitched creatues by Mary Queen of Scots in the 16th century- the "tapisserie de Bayeux" and its cross stitched battles

On the other end: beautiful 90s pixel art that does a lot with a little (low resolution & low power machines)- the high quality pixel art of Tales of Phantasia- the beautiful muted colors of the intro of Dragon Quest VI- the strange and sometimes contradictory perspective of Earthbound

& recent medieval-inspired games:- character design inspired by old manuscripts from Pentiment- the real impeding on the game world in Inkulinati

Art direction: Visuals:

Research on character designs, for combat or exploration scenes.

The research and exploration is still ongoing. But we have a simple method:- use references from real medieval tapestries- reproduce and adapt repetitive motifs & perspectives & superimposed elements that caracterize medieval artworks- colors limited to real available embroidery threads- using half and 3/4 stitches to smooth and make the pixel art more detailed.

Art direction - sound:

We're planning to have a soundscape that's based mostly on ambient sounds, some sound effects, all accompanied by some sparse instrumentation.(for example: in a forest, you'll hear the wind in the branches, birdsong, random wood creaks, augmented by a few melodies & notes that translate the desired mood)

The sound design will be made mainly using real objects. Either with sounds found on open libraries like freesound.org, either with sounds we make ourselves.

For the dialog scenes, there will not be a dub. The characters will talk using a mix of sounds from embroidery and other fiber art materials (scissors snapping & clicking, fabric rustling...), a little bit like the voices from Animal Crossing, but instead of synthetic, they'll be real little sound bytes.

Inspirations:- Shadow of the Colossus and the way the ambient sounds take over for the music during exploration- the Silent Hill games where the music & sound effects form a coherent whole that's almost impossible to separate from one another- Outer Wilds and its simple instrumentation where each instrument represents a character- Bastion where the music is deeply linked to the storytelling- Arrival (the movie) and it's surprising and pulsing soundscapes- Suspiria (the movie) to remind me to not be afraid to go WEIRD with the music

And that's it! Next week, unless there's some big change, I'll probably go over the annex we added to the project, talking about the tech and where it's at.

See you all very soon!