The beginning character art started as shadow monsters because we wanted to give off a spooky vibe to the game. The drawings below display the sketches that were used to create our first characters. Trying to decide head shapes, face shapes, body shapes was all done in sketch to easily and quickly visualize what each character was going to look like. After some discussion the team wanted to change the original idea of shadow monsters to moth people from the realization that moths like lights and lighthouses are a very big light. This idea allowed for more interesting character design for the monster characters which also lead to coming up with a distinct color palette for the game.

As for the environments, we started out with a general lighthouse painting/drawing to feel out the vibe of the game, and started to experiment with backgrounds for in-game. These changed several times, with multiple different stages and colors. Originally we just had the idea to use muted colors for the backgrounds, but decided to lean more heavily on the purple and green themes after some discussion. At first we were leaning towards the more messy/sketchy lining style for the environments, but pulled it back as time went on.

Moving forward, the characters became more refined and we transferred to digital. Lilith and Proxsos, the main "antagonists" of the game and the creatures associated with the Haunting, were originally mostly formless shadow people. Their face designs maintained a fairly consistent design, but while brainstorming we realized that they could be giant moth people, as they were drawn to a LIGHThouse, which is very on brand for moths. Also the idea of creepy moth shadow people is very entertaining to us, and thus they were redesigned. The hazard monsters have slightly different coloring, and are almost more of a cutesy style. They have different shading/texture styles, making them seem out of place, just like everything in the Haunting. They don't say anything, but are harmful if a player touches them, so having them stand out a bit from the environments was necessary.

Once we started working more and implementing things in-engine, we decided to move towards making the environments and platforms more tile-able. The platforms were luckily made originally with modularity in mind, so it was easy to fit them into a tile map. A few of the larger hazards/platforms were in pieces that fit together to be able to customize their length/size to fit whatever was needed in levels. However, the original background was created to fit into the standard 1920x1080 resolution, and was one static piece. After diving deeper into level design, closer to beta, the original background was basically cut out entirely. A tile map was created using the same designs, but simpler, and of course tile-able. Luckily doing so was a simple process, and was fairly easy to iterate to. The background decorations did not have to be adjusted as they were designed to fit into the same color of background, and are just static images that can be places around levels wherever. A few of the decoration pieces are a little surreal, which is meant to add to the tone of weirdness and discomfort. Some of them fit into puzzles or story, such as murals that help the player solve a puzzle, whereas some are just to add a little creepy factor. There are also several sets of scribbled writing to be placed wherever around the levels, some as Easter eggs, others as just pure ramblings to add ambiance.

For more on the art direction and our overall progress and process, here is our Art Bible!