GRAPHICS

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THE CREATIVE VISION OF THE ART & TECH DIRECTION

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This is a monochromatic pixel art game, strongly inspired by the original Game Boy console, released in 1989. Environments are mostly 3D, post-processed with a unique pixel art effect recipe : there's no need for high-resolution meshes. Characters, creatures and collectibles are mostly 2D sprites (animated png sequences), also post-processed with the environment into the same pixel art effect. As the game is monochromatic, most of the art impact will be served by careful use of contrast between lights and shadows.

There's an important meta-level of reality, between the hardware (realistic 3D) and the software (pixels) to support the narrative, some scripted sequences, and the transitions between day and night. The blurriness of this meta-level evolves through the game. Everything that seems disconnected at first, ends up being one single reality. The "game-into-the-game-into-the-game" effect, is on purpose.

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GRAPHICS R&D - THE COLORS

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Nemoral Green
Bloody Red

Golden Syrup
Beige Maple Spread

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GRAPHICS R&D - THE EXPLORATION

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Over the last year, I explored and tried to develop an end result, a tech and aethestic vision, an output recipe that would work whatever the input material, whether it is video footage, or AI animation. After evaluation of every possibilities, the most efficient way to generate all the worlds and maps needed would be to use 3D procedural generation tools, to quickly build large forest, move a camera into it in a first person view, and post-process the end result at runtime. At the end, any graphic input will have the intended look and feel of the creative vision for the art direction.

Here is some of the tests & explorations I did over the last year.

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GRAPHICS R&D - THE BEGINNING

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When I started working on the graphics, my initial question was : How can I do a full pixel art game all alone?

So I did a first try, the classic way, one pixel at the time, and I quickly realize that this it was a no go zone. Tremendous amount of time and efforts for mitigate results. I needed to find a new way.

So I bought an old broken Game Boy Pocket on which I did some repair and mods, and a Game Boy Camera, to be able to take shots, create original pixel art with the proper tools. But this is 1995 tech, and there was no way to extract the files, so I found a device that allow me that.

Result was perfect : 4 shades of grey, perfectly computed, converting the reality into pixel art, with one push of a button. But I could not do much with 128*112 pixels shots.

So I modified the Game Boy Camera to put a zoom on it, and add a raspberry pie device between another Game Boy and the camera, all tied together on a bent metal bookend, screwed on a wood plate, allowing me to have video mode that I could stream on a PC.

Did you eat your broccoli, Andy Boy?

Now I could shoot videos for animation, but still on a super-tiny size. I was going the wrong way, but in the process, I managed to build a decent pixel art webcam for the most important meetings.

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