Didn't get a whole lot done today but I figured I'd share some inspirations on where I'm coming from in terms of the visual design. Here's a photo collage of stuff I've taken IRL over the past few months (warning large image) which contains a lot of industrial stuff that caught my eye. Especially the strange pipes and odd wires. It doesn't matter what it actually is but kind of informs my sense of how weird urban maintenance can be. Yet there seems to be an inherent order to the chaos... so if you live in a city you don't have to look too hard for that kind of stuff in alleyways and such.
Visual media wise a lot of my conscious inspirations for this game are:
- Blame! (obviously)
- Tetsuo the Iron Man
- EGG Elemental Gimmick Gear
- Last Exile
- Valerian and Laureline
- Junk Head
- Naussica Valley of the Wind
- Beneath a Steel Sky
- Dark Seed
Imgur compilation for those curious, images speak louder than words.
One thing I have to note was how disappointed I was about how goofy Beneath a Steel Sky and Dark Seed was. You have these gorgeous backgrounds and these amazing premises and title names. Yet the voice acting and the general tone of everything just contradicts the bleakness of the settings they're in. Fortunately with this anger I can put it to making such a game that I imagined them to be. I hope I do not make the same mistake...
For gameplay and general style I'm mainly going for something like ICO or the beginning parts of Another World. Where it's very atmospheric and not a whole lot going on at first. I have some puzzle ideas jotted down where I think I get something relatively setpiecey yet dynamic enough so that I'm not programming a brand new thing every area. The biggest challenge is really getting a visual style I'm satisfied with and making sure it's not too complicated when it comes time to interfacing with the gameplay.
But yeah feel free to mention anything that this reminds you of. There's a probably a lot of stuff out there that I could drench myself in with desolate oppressive landscapes.