"The opening image is a stark, hard-edged, and high contrast, meant to foreshadow the game's difficulty and overall uncompromising (read: always saving!) nature. "We wanted to evoke a melancholic, mysterious, and lonely feeling with Darkest Dungeon," says Bourassa. I asked Darkest Dungeon creative director Chris Bourassa about that image, and he agreed that this first impression sets the tone for everything that follows. It's no accident that Darkest Dungeon's title screen strikes such a deep chord. You must gather your party before venturing forth. The Gothic backgrounds, sharp animations, and gruesome closeups of two-dimensional violence are in service to a mansion that is clearly out to kill anyone who enters.
But Darkest Dungeon, true to its name, lurks in the shadows.
If I had to find a proper comparison from another game, I'd probably choose Valiant Hearts, which had a similar layered look, and whose residents had a flatness to them. It's a setup you've seen before, but you wouldn't confuse Darkest Dungeon with any other game, in part due to the 2D characters that wander across the screen. You lead a party of up to four adventurers from left to right, clearing dungeons of their mad denizens, and collecting the loot that remains. The turn-based battles that follow make good on that expectation. Of course, I hear the howl of the wind and the call of crows what eerie house would be complete without the sounds of impending doom? It's just the main title screen, but I already know so much before I've even played. The sky is the color of blood and the mansion itself sits so close to cliff's edge, it look as though it might tumble over it. But there's something particularly foreboding about this abode. On the surface, it's just a creepy mansion on a hill.
How much can an artist say with a single image? I wonder this as I look at the title screen for Darkest Dungeon.
0 kommentar(er)
