Hello 

Went through some old folders and found some really early concept/pitch art for PAVILION. The second image is the very first isometric test we did when trying to find the graphic look.

Video. If you didn't notice Henrik put up some short In Game footage in post #57. Feel free to have a look at that too.

 



Have a nice sunday!

I kind of like the texture you get from seeing the brush strokes. Though I think that you could maybe find some more interesting shapes on the rocks. All of them have pretty much the same roundish shape and doesn't feel that connected or piled as the art suggests. Also the lighting on the rocks feel a bit all over the place. I think you could benefit from choosing some sources of light and then imagine how it would affect the surroundings.

The element that I feel is most interesting and really has a unique feel to it is the lower right part of the image with long brush strokes. I bet you could do more interesting graphics with that kind of style. Also the colours on that part is pretty good.

Maybe try to do silhouettes of the different elements in the picture first and then fill them with brush strokes and colour, and then try to do a light pass after that with the whole image in mind.

Looking forward to an update on this! 

Hey man. I really like the gameplay idea behind the desert world. Kind of reminds me of the mindset of Braid where each world has a specific rule/law of nature. If you haven't listened to the Jonathan Blow talk on Braid I would strongly recommend it.

Otherwise. I am sorry for butchering your graphics, but it felt easier to show it than explain it. Maybe you have tried it something similar to what I have done. I basically just chose two different colors for the levels and then had the more saturated colours in the foreground. Maybe this test could give you a fresh view or some good ideas.
 

Your sense of depth, design, colours and framing is superb! Well done sir!

I am very curious of what kind of game you have in mind? Would be cool to see some kind of gameplay mechanic that could echo the art in a way where they would complement echother in more ways than just estetic. Either way if a game looked like this it might just be enough to walk around in. Will you shed some light on your ideas?

Would love to hear your thoughts on games!
 

Hey Folks!

We recently did an interview on PAVILION for the Indie Games Channel which got published today.
Feel free to read it here:
http://indiegameschannel.com/wp/2013/01/31/visiontrick-medias-henrik-flink-on-pavilion/#more-10744

What about Ivan Pavlov?
yet another psychologist, but his conditioning research is quite interesting. Could probably be applied to battle too, where he could condition certain character/enemies to act upon reflex to a given sound or something. Kind of like a subconscious command ability.

Haha, would love to hear conversations between some of the recently named characters. Or just some short battle comments between them would be fun, referening to their specific traits and such.

o god wtf am i looking at it's all so splendid

Thanks!

WILLIAM, brings TV, back, in style!

- awesome images -

 

Thanks man, I'll send you my bank account info

WILLIAM, brings TV, back, in style!

snip

Im not quite sure what im looking at here, but all i know is that i love it!

Thanks a bunch!

WILLIAM, brings TV, back, in style!

This one really stands out from the stuff in this thread. It doesn't obey the rules of graphic design, but that's what makes it so surreal. It's like it's imported straight from someone's subconscious.

I think you are on to something when you mentioned the subconscious. Sometimes while working on stuff like this I get in to this intuitive state where things just kind of flow. This was something like that. And I usually don't care too much about rules, as long as it looks good and gives you the right feeling I just keep at it. Cool thing you like it!

WILLIAM, brings TV, back, in style!

This is fucking neat.

Thank you very much!

WILLIAM, brings TV, back, in style!

Looks great! I really like this kind of simple design with big untextured surfaces and gradients. Would love to see a night time version of this. Maybe try to put dark gradients at the top and bottom of the image to center the attention to the middle part of the screen, to give more focus to the character.
Great stuff!

Great news to hear about the progress being made!

Yes, I see how Freud would be the obvious choice. From personal investigation I think Jung is a tat more interesting though. Especially the *Red Book* work. Nothing that would matter to your game I guess.
But if you like psychology and journeys within yourself I can recommend reading about it. Interesting stuff.
How many different proffessions will there be? And is it hard to balance the different skills of the characters against eachother?

That just looks freakin insane!

Thanks for the support Mono!

This looks great and I very much like the setting!
Cool set of characters too! Would I be able to play as Crowley?

Will keep my eye on this!

Thanks! I really like your work on Pavilion.
You won't be able to directly play as Crowley, but he can be a part of the trek that you will manage (that is, if you really want to take an occultist with you ).
The plan is to include a lot of real characters from this time period.

Thanks! I think Pavilion might roam in a similar universe as Incognita.

Yeah, I have heard/read some nasty things about Crowley. Though I am very interested in what happened in the world around the time of early 1900. Especially the spiritual and occult interest around this time harbours a lot of cool stuff.
Have myself been thinking about an alternative history story revolving around the russian mystic Rasputin. He is also a character you might want to consider, cool guy.
Also look at C G Jung, born the same years as Crowley I think, though I would kind of see them at the opposite end of the scale.

Very much enjoying where you are heading so far, keep that up please!


 

That Cotton Eye Joe song makes me proud of being a Swede!
Looks like a damn fine party too!

This looks great and I very much like the setting!
Cool set of characters too! Would I be able to play as Crowley?

Will keep my eye on this!

Nice!
Cool to have that parallaxing background! Almost felt like the party was chasing the enemies, haha. I was just waiting for a big enemy to suddenly appear from the left and scare the party, so that the tables turn and now the enemies are chasing the party.

I wonder if some element of suprise like that would be interesting to implement? might make traditional rpg battles a little bit more dynamic, especially if there was and element of randomness to it.
Cool stuff man, definitely spawned some ideas of my own
Keep up the good work!

Below is a snapshot of what was happening in my mind in the beginning of 2012:

I suggest an aspirin.. 

Haha, can't find the migrane smiley...

I tried out some of the beginning stages and it works pretty good, I got in to the foreground background quite quick.
Something I felt though, about being in the background level, was that it maybe would have been cool to have some tiles that you could see through. Like if there was a hole in the middle of a tile in the foreground wall so that you could see the edge of the platform in the background level. I found myself a couple of times running with the background character and fell of the edge when disapperaing behinde the foreground layer. It was most likely just my poor platforming skills but having some tiles that have some cracks or holes in them might be something to try out..?
Otherwise I totally see how you could put a lot of cool secret areas in a game like this. It was a cool feeling, I think it was on the second or third screen (spoiler) that you met a dead end with the background character and had to jump down a few steps back to get to a lower level which was kind of hidden by the foreground level. That was a really cool discovery. I love puzzle designs like that!

Btw, have you tried using different colours for the layers to up the contrast between them even more?
An what if the background character had the same dark value as the background tiles? In that case I think you would feel even more that he really belongs to the background level.

Music was cool too! Keep up the cool stuff!

I just want to drop by and say I adore the artwork on this! It stood out to me when I was browsing the IGF entrants, and I went to your website to find out more. I had no idea it was linked to the Pathfinder game I saw you guys post here last year, but that makes it even cooler. I thought the pixel art was very cool, but the new style makes it really feel like it's evolved into the best version of itself.

Anyway, good luck and I look forward to updates!

Thanks a bunch man!
I hope your projects are coming along great too! Yeah, haha, feels good that this year's IGF demo didn't make us realize something that would fundamentally change both the game design and graphics. The demo was just a scratch on the surface of what we want the final version of Pavilion to be but we gained some good experience out of putting that demo tegether. And we definitely feel we are on the right track.

Below is a snapshot of what was happening in my mind in the beginning of 2012:

Latest screen looks very nice, love it!
The red coloured character is subtle in the screen, but I can imagine him contrasting pretty well against the background while moving.
Looking forward to see more of this!

Hope I was clear enough 

I think so, thank you!

So, do you apply the textures in game, or in Photoshop too?

All graphics are done in photoshop. This is a 2D game. Though using the isometric perspective we can create a fake depth kind of. We might use some parallaxing layers to enhance that feeling but that will be only cosmetics nothing that would benefit the gameplay. 

I have been working as a concept/texture artist, matte painter and illustrator for the past 5+ years so that is why I wanted to make the graphics highly detailed and both painted and photo sourced. It is what I feel comfortable doing so it kind of came natural. It is a lot of fun too