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Paradigm: Spry Fox

10 developers on what makes their games 'hand-fatigued'

Plenty of games are described equally paw-fatigued. Here's what that means to different developers

By Apr 22, 2021, 4:37pm EDT

The world of Cozy Grove looks similar the within of a sketchbook. Its detailed illustrations, rich with colour and varied linework, slowly fade from total color to muted, almost unfinished scenes. These are there for a purpose; the player is to bring color and life dorsum to the island. Simply it'southward also a technique designed to convey a sense of warmth and humanity — that this is a globe touched past life.

Programmer Spry Fox describes the game as "hand-drawn," and that feel has always been a priority for the team. Information technology'south a descriptor that enough of games take taken on over the years; notable hand-drawn games include the likes of Cuphead and Spiritfarer, neither of which quite resemble Cozy Grove's hand-fatigued style. Afterward all, in breaking down the term "mitt-drawn" to its simplest terms, we get something that'due south drawn by hand — as obvious as that sounds. About games have an element of cartoon, with artists that create textures, illustrate backgrounds, and model characters. A lot of games would qualify as paw-drawn, but merely some choose to attach to that label. What does it hateful for a game to be manus-drawn? As information technology turns out, that'due south different for most developers.

"One of our primary goals was to make a game that looks like a beautiful sketchbook that gets colored by watercolor washes as the world and its characters evolve," Cozy Grove lead artist Noemí Gómez told Polygon. "The whole concept affected how nosotros approach the line work — we aimed for a crispy, ink-looking linework — and rendering — heavily textured rendering — in Cozy Grove to resemble traditional art."

Cozy Grove is drawn using digital tools, similar a stylus on a touchscreen tablet, only in a way that makes it look like information technology was created past a person using physical mediums: ink and watercolor. Its 2nd objects and characters are specifically designed in a way to mimic the impact that a physically drawn line has. "Every bit information technology turns out, there's an aesthetic to lines," Spry Fox co-founder and chief creative officer Daniel Cook said. "At that place's something but very warm and personal about a hand-drawn line that varies ever so slightly in width, and where it ends and how it tails. We've had a lot of discussions nigh this: What makes a skilful line?"

Mitt-drawn means a lot of different things to different people, and while I was doing inquiry for this story, plenty of developers asked me: Does my game count every bit manus-drawn? For me, the reply was yeah, if they idea it counted — it's non upward to me to decide. Here's what everyone said.

[Ed. note: Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.]

Mundaun

Image: Hidden Fields/MWM Interactive

Mundaun is unique in the fashion it's hand-drawn. From solo programmer Michel Ziegler and published by MWM Interactive, Mundaun's art is modeled on a figurer, with manus-drawn pencil textures drawn and scanned to the computer fine art. The resulting look is stunning — unlike any other game I've seen earlier.

Here's what Ziegler had to say:

The first pace is to create the 3D model digitally and doing the UV Unwrap, [which is a process that makes models flat]. I then physically print out the UV maps and trace them roughly on a lightbox onto a fresh slice of paper. And then I usually practice a rough sketch pass on them, especially if it is for something like a face texture, where the drawing needs to somewhat marshal with the 3D model. Things similar woods or rocks are obviously more forgiving in that regard. I scan the drawing and apply it to the 3D model, which is my favorite moment. I echo drawing and scanning until I am happy with the result.

Simply I think I designed the game in the same way that a drawing builds from sketch to the finished thing. Beingness a solo dev allowed me to work on the game globe and systems in an organic fashion, adding details, scenes, and elements as it felt natural. Everything was growing at the same time. The world, the characters, the plot, the gameplay. I hope the players can experience the same element of discovery throughout the game that I felt while creating information technology.

Drawing is my master passion. I discovered it rather late in life, but it did alter the way I look at things in a major way. So whenever possible, I want to use that form of expression. I like unwieldy processes with an element of randomness. Whenever I commencement utilise a drawn texture to a model, at that place is an element of surprise. It's merely also much fun to discover things that work by accident.

Before Your Eyes

Prototype: Goodbye World Games/Skybound Games

Before Your Optics is played with the player's own eyes — their existent-life blinks, tracked by a webcam, control the story. Before Your Eyes skips forward each fourth dimension the player blinks. The visuals are of import; this is a game played with optics, afterwards all. Artist Hana Lee told me that having Before Your Eyes have a hand-drawn feel was essential: "[Before Your Eyes] waves between a dream-like setting and the real earth, and I don't call up this could have been conveyed in an interesting mode if the game had hyperrealistic graphics."

They connected:

The cozy temper with the vibrant background colours would definitely not have been the same if it weren't hand-drawn.

I've always worked in a paw-drawn style so I can't actually say how much it'south unlike from a game that's non hand-drawn, only I call up the process is quite unproblematic. Low poly models work very well with the cartoonish side of my style, and then information technology's actually about trying to go the full general shapes correct and how many polygons I can cutting down on to make things as uncomplicated as possible, but also take them be expressive. Having graphic symbol models be mocapped was a first for me, so that brought very interesting results where cartoonish characters were actually coming to life.

In addition to this, the protagonist Benjamin isn't exactly exact, so to have him express himself nosotros added in hand-fatigued and blithe UI when he makes decisions. There are also scenes where he creates art, then too we blithe these to show that he's putting care into his artistic decisions. Some illustrations accept curt "start to finish" animations likewise, to prove that he's drawing.

As for second assets in the game, I did everything digitally but I stuck to using brushes that take crude edges to make them quite literally look manus-fatigued. I used a rough marker brush for virtually of them and then that they nonetheless fit with the general style of the game, and for some animations I used 1 that leaned more than towards oil paint and gouache.

I feel similar hyperrealism oft breaks expression and vibrancy, and if the game leaned more towards this side I retrieve the story would have had a much heavier tone, rather than a whimsical and more hopeful ane. I think many characters, similar the Ferryman for example, would non have worked if he were a realistic, anthropomorphic coyote.

Considering this is a game you play with your eyes besides, we'd like players to endeavour and focus on every particular we put into every scene. There'southward something fun and interesting in every nook and cranny of the game that gives the characters depth and personality, and by having these be simplified in a hand-drawn style, they're much easier to take in.

If Plant...

Image: Dreamfeel/Annapurna Interactive

If Found... was one of my favorite games of terminal year, and I loved the mechanic of erasing. The game, created by developer Dreamfeel and published past Annapurna Interactive, is near a queer woman in Ireland in the '90s. Information technology's basically a journal based around a specific time period in Kaiso's life.

It was heartbreaking to erase the lovely drawings from creative person Liadh Young — but that hurting was essential to the story. Young started a diary of her own for inspiration, doodling and scribbling to make full out pages that were scanned to create the game's final art.

Young described If Found... and the process:

The story is mostly told through Kasio's diary. Through drawings and text she records her surroundings and her ain emotions during this period of time. To give the diary an authentic feel the fine art of Kasio'south diary was drawn in pencil on paper and scanned in. I drew hundreds of pages for every little piece of art in the game.

We wanted the diary to feel as realistic as possible. During development I also started my own diary like to Kasio's and it helped me go into the mindset of what Kasio would record in her daily life and how she would depict certain subjects. I found when keeping a diary, y'all would draw yourself as a scribbly mess, draw your friends with the utmost intendance, and doodle mindlessly around text when you were thinking near other things.

While reading the script I would sketch moments as if I was filling out a diary folio, kind of post-obit Kasio's stream of consciousness. These sketches would sometimes then exist fleshed out into more refined illustrations, but nosotros scanned and kept every single cartoon in the process! Afterwards these extra sketches and doodles would occasionally also become part of the collages and go used in unexpected places.

I was given a lot of free rein in the style of the art and limerick of the images. I think that freedom to depict in my own style made the art of If Found feel very personal. I think it emphasized that the story was illustrated by the protagonist, Kasio.

When manager Llaura McGee and I were brainstorming for If Found, the thought of a diary came quite naturally due to our shared interest in zine culture, indie comics and my preference for drawing on newspaper and in sketchbooks. Nosotros set out to make a game that combined a sketchbook, the unique erasing mechanic and a narrative. The game was built around the art direction, rather than the other way around.

I think one interesting way the art influences how If Institute is played in the erasing mechanic. You have to erase the drawings to progress the story, and evidently some people struggle with erasing Kasio's memories, especially the happier ones!

Nobody Saves the Earth

Image: DrinkBox Studios

DrinkBox Studios will release Nobody Saves the Earth "soon-ish," and I'm eager to see more of its colorful drawing art style. From the developer of Guacamelee!, Nobody Saves the World is an activity role-playing game with art that looks as interesting every bit the gameplay. And, according to DrinkBox Studios concept lead August Quijano, it'southward hand-drawn:

I think people use "paw-drawn" to mean that the art was created with traditional animation techniques, e.m., using pencil and paper, flipping through drawings with a lightbox, and possibly as far equally inking and coloring each frame past hand. Just, technology has allowed u.s. to make stylistic choices and have options, then nearly of the games accept some "manus-fatigued" component and it makes the definition murky.

We at present use monitors you tin draw on with a special pen into an blitheness software. It's all drawn digitally past hand, only might not exist considered "hand-drawn" by some because it's a paperless process.

Having simply finished creating a few games with characters that used a very polygonal style (e.thou., Guacamelee ! two), we found ourselves wanting to exercise something dissimilar, so nosotros began exploring different styles. Nosotros were exploring linework that could convey some sense of "grossness" like Ren and Stimpy, or Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, just integrated into a world similar in feel to the early on Zelda games.

Cozy Grove

Epitome: Spry Fox

Creative person Noemí Gómez described Cozy Grove every bit "adult cozy," a game that's cute and warm but, ultimately, has serious themes. The art way, which has a piffling more punch than a game like Creature Crossing: New Horizons, is a key gene in how it'south perceived.

Nosotros like to define Cozy Grove'southward style as "Adult cozy", to accomplish this style we took a lot of inspiration from Ghibli movies, especially when it comes to the whole vibe and temper. Another big inspiration was Over the Garden Wall, which I think captures and balances the cozy and spooky vibes really well. Style-wise yous can clearly see references to Don't Starve's art style.

Making a game that resembles traditional art makes it difficult to create a fast and efficient piece of work process as every asset was made with attention to item (to also enhance the hidden object cistron in Cozy Grove). Every creative person working in the project had to put their creative potential into the rendering of every individual nugget to create this effect, while like titles in the market get for a jail cell-shading art style for this kind of game. All in all, we had to work extra hard to deliver big loads of highly detailed pieces of art into Cozy Grove!

The art fashion was ready pretty early on likewise every bit the basic game mechanics but I think we got super fastened to the characters very early on which I retrieve was one of the decisive factors that turned Cozy Grove into the heavily story focused game it is today.

Petty Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends

Image: Pie for Breakfast Studios

Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends is coming to Nintendo Switch and Windows PC, and it's based on the cartoonist Winsor McCay'south comic strips. That's evident from the fine art style and animation: It feels like it'southward been pulled straight from the era. Game designer Chris Totten spoke nigh the game:

For us "hand-drawn" is a way to experiment with bringing game art closer to other art forms (especially traditional animation, which [Winsor] McCay was an early pioneer of) and getting to explore animation history. We're paying homage to the artwork of an important figure that set up the stage for many of the processes nosotros use today, and so nosotros wanted to get as close to his fashion as possible.

COVID-19 knocked out our power to do a full in-studio ink-on-cels procedure of the kind you lot saw with Cuphead (or traditional feature animation in full general), so we're using the new 2D animation tools in the free and open-source digital blitheness program Blender. Rather than using vectors or anything similar that, we're still drawing the animations by hand with tablets post-obit traditional animation principles like Disney's 12 Principles of Blitheness, in-betweening (which McCay invented), and so on. To keep this procedure as "one-time school" as possible , nosotros're staying away from more modern elements of our animation software like armatures ("bones" put inside artwork to make it movement), "boob" blitheness (call back Wink cartoons), or interpolation (depict shape A, then depict shape B on a afterwards frame, and the estimator makes everything between.) We're doing everything nosotros tin can with straightforward drawing.

Nightmare Fiends is as much a celebration of an important artist's piece of work as much as information technology is a cool indie game. Winsor McCay laid the groundwork for the comics and animation industries as we know them, which in plow had a lot of influences on games.

Welcome to Elk

Image: Triple Topping Games

Triple Topping's Welcome to Elk is a game that tells true stories told to the programmer from retentiveness. The stories were combined to create the narrative, and the fine art manner reflects the magic and organicness of the story. Information technology's digitally drawn, using a specific artful to give information technology that affect, though Triple Topping Games' Murray Somerville said some textures were fabricated with charcoal and white oil paint and then scanned into a library that artists pulled from.

"I think there's something about seeing a concrete marking that subconsciously communicates to a viewer the understanding that this was 'handmade,'" said Somerville.

I think what makes me call up of a game every bit "hand drawn" is something to practice with seeing some evidence of physicality in the art making. I think there are quirks and personalized ways of marking making that make you visualize someone actually making that line rather than from a computer.

With Welcome to Elk, the game is based on true stories so we wanted the art to feel personal and capture that "hand drawn" feeling so it has a connexion to the power of storytelling. Something which tells you a human made this, much in the same way nosotros get from the mode we tell stories to one another.

The way we did this is, nosotros drew everything "free hand" — which isn't annihilation profound, it just ways that when drawing, everything from characters to backgrounds, we did with our hands and without using digital tools that would simulate more "right" structure. And then straight lines are never completely direct because they have been drawn by hand, aforementioned with shapes like circles — nothing is a clean representation but instead something which has been done to the best it tin can be by a human paw and eye.

I think it's in the consistency of seeing these small imperfections, these pocket-sized bumps and awkwardness that conveys a "paw fatigued" aesthetic, because we can mostly all relate to the idea of trying to draw a straight line.

Code Romantic

Image: prettysmart games

Code Romantic is a visual novel that teaches coding, and a lot hinges on the art. It'due south a beloved story with unique, compelling characters from prettysmart games, with watercolor illustrations from Allyson Kelley. And it teaches you to code! Miko Charbonneau, founder of prettysmart games, and Kelley told me about the game and its fine art.

Charbonneau:

I would classify anything drawn by a paw either on paper or with a stylus equally manus-drawn. However, we emphasize this attribute of our game because all of the characters and backgrounds were sketched, inked and painted by paw on paper. The watercolors are scanned in, colored, and made into grapheme asset sheets. The face up pieces are painted digitally by Allyson. So I assemble them and breathing them in Unity.

To me it'south similar making a motion picture, you accept to do a lot of pre-planning for every shot because it's plush to re-shoot it later. I recollect information technology was worth information technology, though. There's a natural aspect to seeing little pencil marks and hints of paper that brings information technology a human being quality.

I was excited past the challenge of bringing traditional watercolors into a digital, interactive environment. I wanted Allyson to work in the way she was most comfortable and I wanted the cease outcome to have a lot of personality. The art definitely changed the fashion the game looks and feels! We were influenced by propaganda posters and romanticism landscapes, and Allyson combined these inspirations with her own manner. Fifty-fifty though the game takes identify over a hundred years in the time to come, at that place's a nostalgic charm to the setting and the character designs that surprised me. The machines in item took on a whimsical quality I couldn't accept come up with on my ain.

Code Romantic is a visual novel with coding puzzles, then at that place's not every bit much gameplay as other genres. The art definitely influenced how we chose to do animations and cinematics, however. We wanted to include as many different poses as possible, which led to the split pieces approach with more animations and a more dynamic camera.

Code Romantic artwork by Allyson Kelley.

Photo courtesy of Miko Charbonneau

Kelley:

I think the biggest departure between Lawmaking Romantic and many other paw-drawn 2D games is how much we embraced the texture and messiness of a traditional medium. In that location'due south a sure lack of command, or randomness, that you become from watercolor and ink that just don't happen when yous work digitally. With digital paw-drawn games and illustrations you either have to add in that messiness and variations or comprehend the exacting smoothness.

But now there are and then many great textured brushes that digital work can actually await merely like traditional piece of work!

We started with a script and created storyboards. Front in that location we made sure the story was working and planned out what poses or game avails we needed. Most character poses and early game avails started traditionally and as the game progressed and new pieces were needed, the sketches were then done digitally to help speed up production.

And then they are transferred to watercolor paper and inked in either chocolate-brown or sepia. I kickoff with a yellowish ochre wash, and then apply some bones shading in a purple gray mix. And then they are scanned in, cleaned up, and colored in Photoshop. The ochre wash helps all the characters and elements feel more unified while using Photoshop allows us to have a more than consistent and controlled color.

Other games that rely on 3D avails would most likely offset with the aforementioned initial concept and sketch stages then motility on to modeling, sculpting, rigging, texturing, then animating. Recently though I've been seeing really fascinating 3D sculptures and avails that are blending watercolor pieces and textures into their games. It'south astonishing!

Out of Line

Prototype: Nerd Monkeys/Hatinh Interactive

Out of Line looks like a painting — a whimsical journey in a fantastical, mysterious world. Atomic number 82 artist Francisco Santos explained the process:

For us, [hand-drawn] means that a game has a different and personal art way, close to a more "traditional" style institute in paintings or drawings. But the overall "paw-drawn" feel in our game, also comes by merging all the different components of the game, including story, animation, VFX, music and audio design. Where all these parts come together and create the "manus-drawn" feel to the earth.

In my stance, a game that embraces a "hand-fatigued" fashion is a game that takes inspiration and tries to match a more than "traditional" style of art, much closer to a drawing, a painting or blitheness done in a non-digital medium. This as well ways that the process of creation is similar. A more than creative and complimentary process, but also a longer and a less flexible one where everything is "done by hand" created from scratch. Simply with the upside that in the stop, the result will be something dissimilar and much closer to the artist's vision.

In our game, Out of Line, every graphical part of the game tries to follow that direction. Taking shut inspiration from Studio Ghibli films, short animated movies, modernistic painting movements like impressionism and expressionism, among many more.

It'due south easy to go lost in the "hand-drawn" part of the manner and forget the medium that is really serving. So we have to go on reminding ourselves, that the fine art fashion approach we took has to serve the game beginning, making the game readable and enjoyable for the histrion to navigate in. But also has to be close to the artist's vision and feelings. Giving at the cease, something "hand-drawn", different and refreshing to the player.

Good Lookin Home Cookin

Image: Toadhouse Games

Toadhouse Games' Telephone call Me Cera is coming out in 2022, simply the team released a vignette from the game called Good Lookin Dwelling house Cookin this year. Toadhouse founder Alanna Linayre said the game is virtually "two best friends running a food court during Ramadan," while Call Me Cera, as a whole, is well-nigh making friends as an adult, and the art played into that.

Hither's Linayre on the hand-drawn art manner:

I wanted the games to be paw-drawn for many reasons. I loved how it reminded me of picture books, which has a comforting, nostalgic feeling. But mostly, the characters in our games are messy and real, and I wanted the art to reverberate that. I wanted it to have a homo affect, since our visual novels focus on making good for you choices that allow Players to explore messy IRL situations. And I didn't want the game to feel also precious or perfect. I wanted Players to feel comfortable experimenting and relaxing in the world nosotros congenital. Lastly, many visual novels have a sleek anime expect to them. I wanted to stand out and make it clear that what works in those might not work while playing ours.

I told our concept artist, who also did our backgrounds, to lean into the nostalgic and comfy pic book feeling. I told them to add equally many loving fiddling details as they could. I then asked our sprite creative person to friction match that painterly style and color story, but to make the characters wait more polished and cleaner than the backgrounds, so they stood out and were easy on the eyes. The combination gave the characters a natural focus, when laid on top of the more hazy backgrounds.

A negative side consequence to my choices is that people sometimes assume our demographic is younger. We wrote the stories with 25-40 year olds in heed. However, after people play our games, we've been told our intentions become more than clear.

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Source: https://www.polygon.com/interviews/22397934/indie-games-hand-drawn-artists-cozy-grove

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