Hey everyone. Here’s a short interview with Mat, our lead visual designer for LightFall, talking about his inspirations, the art style of our game… and even babbling about Breaking Bad. Take a seat for this journey inside this man’s crazy mind.
Q : How would you describe the style and artwork of LightFall?
LightFall is a lonely and solitary universe. We decided to go with a 2D silhouette style for the project, dark yet colored, enchanting yet mysterious. You never feel safe in the LightFall world but you still want to keep going and discover more. The feeling is a bit like Alice in Wonderland.
Q : Did you encounter any difficulties while creating this universe, either for the art style or simply having problems feeling inspired?
Well, automatically, when you do a 2D silhouette art style, people associate it with Limbo, and rightfully so. It can be difficult to be compared to such a giant, but also flattering. It can also be quite difficult to display the volume of the world with this style. Overall, though, it wasn’t that bad as I didn’t need to incorporate that much details compared to other visual styles.
Q : Why the silhouette style?
The style went hand in hand with the gameplay we wanted to implement. Our character has to dodge and move around lighted obstacles. The silhouette style presents a strong contrast between the character and the obstacles. It’s also easy to create a dark ambiance.
Q : What other games or movies inspired you for LightFall?
Obviously, Limbo, as I said earlier, as they popularized the silhouette style. Badland is also another game I really enjoyed and inspired me. As for movies, there’s an old european movie called ‘’Les aventures du prince Ahmed’’, created in the 1920s, that developped this kind of art style. For the game design, I have always been a huge fan of Super Meat Boy, so obviously I wanted to replicate some elements from this game that I found amazing.
Q : Can you talk about the creation process? Is the final version way different than the initial concept?
Yes it is. At the beginning, we wanted our world to be all black, aside from the lighted obstacles. Our character was also black, so we found it was difficult, if not impossible, to see him clearly while playing. We then decided to add colors to the universe, while maintaining this dark and solitary ambiance. Adding colors also gave us the opportunity to show a chromatic and logical evolution between the levels and the worlds of LightFall.
Q : If you could only say one sentence to convince the gamers out there to play LightFall, what would it be?
”Tight… Tight… Tight…” -Tuco Salamanca, Breaking Bad.
The artwork evolution of LightFall, from the original concept to our current version:
PS- Here are the links for Limbo, Badland, Super Meat Boy and Les aventures du prince Ahmed, you should totally check these out.
Limbo: http://limbogame.org/
Badland: http://www.badlandgame.com/
Super Meat Boy: http://supermeatboy.com/
Prince Ahmed: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Aventures_du_prince_Ahmed