This time I’d like to share a few words about the creation process involved in bringing the game world to life.

As of now, the game is still very much a skeleton model of concepts which are being fleshed out onto a frame, which will later on support the game itself. The areas in the game involve a slightly more complicated way of fabricating them. First, I personally go through a lot of different concepts from real world examples and get in touch with what I’d consider to be a concept that would be plausible (believable) in real life, should the mythological and fantasy aspects be stripped off. Then the process moves onto negotiating with the background artist in order to create a sketch of the area, which can then be used as a reference to find historical inaccuracies that can either be covered with a fantasy equivalent, or require further investigation from their real life counterparts. A good example would be the traditional Japanese style ‘Minka’ thatched roof houses. We had an exchange of quite the few messages in order to determine how the windows were sealed during the winter time, as glass panes were obviously not in use at the time in the real world. This of course leads to the question as to whether it is necessary to go into such detail for the sake of a fantasy game, but as said in the previous post, I personally think it is worth it in the end. Even if to just deepen the feel for the game world itself; The game being after all, a re-imagining of a popular concept through Westerners’ eyes. After this process is done, it is used by the other artists to create a unified feel to the derivative artworks, such as the tilesets, which are being used in the game world itself.

From concept to flesh, the imagining of the mountain village called Hayamadani.

An example of the above process can be seen in the village of Hayamadani. A simple mountain village, secluded in a valley circled by eight mountain peaks. A rather pastoral piece of land where the life has lulled into an almost complete standstill, broken only by the changes of the seasons. Where agriculture and hunting is the equivalent of daily grind, and the worries of the big cities seem so far away. Simply put, a mountain village filled with simple people who go through their lives on a day-by-day basis.

This time I’ll cut the post slightly shorter than usual, but hopefully I’ll have something more interesting for the next time. As always, thank you for reading!

Hayamadani as completed lineart, click to open separately.