When creating a story set in a fictional world you have an obligation to craft a world that players can get immersed in. It doesn’t need to resemble anything in reality, but you need to create an illusion of a unified universe through coherent and consistent design.
Today we will share how we worked when creating the Industrial area of Shadow Puppeteer.
We wanted an area in the game that was organic. Something to provide as a stark contrast to the industrial area. We talked a lot about the journey that the Boy and Shadow undertake. They leave behind something that is familiar and safe and explore an unknown world. To us, part of that would be to bring them back to nature.
We looked at the possibilities with a forest, with treehouses and interesting play with shadows against tree trunks, and we discussed caves. Ultimately, caves would give us more options and was better suited for varied gameplay. Bigger surfaces made it easier to design levels.
As summer vacation in Norway is soon coming to an end, we will be starting on our
blogging again in a couple of weeks. Our posts will become more exciting as we are closing
in on our release deadline so make sure to tune in.
For now we will leave you with a small intermission of images from our office. Here you can
also see our temporary assisting 3D animator Torjus working on the Shadow Puppeteer
-rig. Torjus is a great guy that will be helping us out.
Today’s post is by Marianne and Philip, who reworked the original visual concept of Shadow Puppeteer and lay down the guides for the final design.
When we started reworking the design, we decided to start looking at different sources of inspiration. We didn’t want a classic «steampunk» setting or another typical setting. The internet is a wonderful source of inspiration, but there are a few drawbacks. 1) It’s easy to find what you are looking for, but not always as easy to by chance stumble across something that might be of interest, and 2) It is so easy to get sidetracked or lost and lose precious time.
Today we’ll write about the design process for the main villain: The Shadow Puppeteer!
Compared to the development of the Boy where the focus lay primarily on the physical aspects, the development of the Puppeteer was much more psychological.
When creating a villain you have to decide what makes him or her a villain and what «brand» of evil that is. With the Puppeteer we had to consider this: Is he aware of his actions and the consequences? Is he dumb? Is he intelligent?