When thinking about your game's story or gameplay system, how do you make sure they support each other instead of dividing the player's intentions?
In Qasir al-Wasat, we made one big decision that helped us create more consistency: giving the protagonist a lot of personality.
Subtle, our invisible daemon, is far from a silent protagonist. It has its own goals (searching for certain pieces of information) and its preferred problem-solving tactics (normally involving being patient and waiting).
Qasir's gameplay was built to become more rewarding the more the player acts like Subtle. For example: going on a killing spree is allowed, but it will certainly be more difficult than simply avoiding guards; getting lost through the corridors is quite common, but from Subtle's point of view this is an opportunity to investigate rather than an annoyance.
In a certain way, one could say the player has to become an actor in order to enjoy Qasir al-Wasat at it's best.
Want to know more about the gameplay development? Sign up for our newsletter, as that will be the theme for the next one.
It is time for us to check out the visual development of Qasir al-Wasat, how the visuals came to be and which references and principles guided the art direction. Today we will present a broad view of the sources and processes used during development, used in the character designs, props, background and typography. So, if this is your cup of tea, head over to archives for some crisp in-depth posts.
A question of setting
As mentioned before, Qasir’s development follows directly the pre-production of another game we were working in 2009, the Tsar Project. And since Qasir is a prequel to that story it seemed logical at the time to carry along Tsar's art direction to the new project. But when released Qasir’s first teaser it received so much positive feedback for its Arabian setting and use of folklore, that we decided to, quite literally, go back to the drawing board.
We've kept though Tsar's main visual guideline: that the more Subtle empathizes with something, the more realistically we should represent such thing. You can see this above, with concept art for the Tsar Project showing a progressive stylizations from left to right, with the Goetians at one end and the matryoshka-inspired Russian countryfolk in the other.
Graphics for an Arabian tale
Changing the setting from Moscow to the Syrian Desert we had to find another reference style to apply in the more stylised elements of the game. Now, there was a strong visual tradition in the Middle-East during pre-Islamic times, and in some places, not only did illustration survive, but it flourished under Islam. And around the 12th century this was especially true with the Persian Miniatures:
But why have a Persian style if the story takes place in the Levant? In fact, one could say that what you see in the game is not the action as it happened in Syria, but the story someone in Alamut or Shiraz put down in an illustrated book, years later. That's why rooms have decorative borders with golden foiled margins, characters are so contrastingly flat and architecture bends itself in unrealistic geometry.
Keeping it authentic
Having the art direction rooted in traditional style, it was not enough to just have characters and objects painted based on history – their very clothes and decorations should fit the setting properly. That's why the bulk of our palace was inspired by two real Syrian Palaces: Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi and Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi. Clothing and customs were (even if briefly) discussed and verified with historians. Each individual jar, plate, box and statue in the game was carefully hand painted, inspired by examples displayed in museums around the world [1, 2, 3]. Everything should resemble objects that could be dug off the ruins of an ancient red brick palace, if archeologists were ever to find a palace at the bottom of a dam near Palmyra.
Keeping it painterly
Hand painting props and backgrounds guaranteed a realistic and crafty look we were going for, but also brought some challenges to the game design. Tiling painted images can be much more complicated than pixel art, for instance, and this is why we've built Qasir's level design with soft edged pieces. There are over 60 individual wall pieces, more than 20 floor tiles and a plethora of set pieces scattered through the palace to break patterns and make rooms unique.
Even some of the animations in the game were hand painted, frame by frame. This was achieved with bitmap-based software, and most of the time in the least automated way, so that the final result felt organic and kept that slight unevenness of handcraft.
Character personality
Characters, on the other hand, should feel more constrained, stylised and abstracted than backgrounds. With a volume of characters enough to overburden a single animator we decided to go with skeletal animation. After having the ones animated frame by frame, this technique allowed us to swap textures and have many different characters animated at once. The separate textures for each character were done in vector art, resulting in the flat and crisp look that allowed for many variations of details and palette.
Lastly, Qasir is a text-heavy game, presenting two great opportunities. The first one was to bring onboard two talented calligraphers, Marcelo Perin and Marcel Bruschi, that created the scribblings you'll find in the many letters and notes around the palace. They worked from Arabic, Paleo Hebrew and a peculiar medieval script sources to create unintelligible yet visually fitting texts. The second opportunity was to use a variety of typefaces, giving each character’s group a different voice. We were fortunate enough to find some great open-license fonts, and will make a Tumblr post dedicated to them very shortly.
More to come!
There's so much more we could go in depth with the visual development! Check regularly for more updates in this and other topics. As for these letters, expect the next one shortly after the game release, with a look at Qasir's game design and mechanics!
Until then we'll be around at the usual Twitter, Facebook and here a the Tumblr!
Just a quick update to thank and list all the amazing, and open, fonts we used in Qasir:
IM Fell Family cut by Peter De Walpergen around 1690 and digitized by Igino Marini
Kaushan designed by Pablo Impallari
Patrick Hand Family designed by Patrick Wagesreiter
Odana designed by Bhikkhu Pesala
DejaVu Sans created by the DejaVu Team
Marck Script and Ruslan designed by Denis Masharov
Cuprum and Neucha designed by Jovanny Lemond
Playfair Family designed by Claus Eggers Sørensen
Coming January 19 2016 to Steam, Humble Store and Nuuvem the International Edition of Qasir al-Wasat features stealth gameplay in a gorgeously crafted 12th c...
Dear travellers, we can now confirm: Qasir al-Wasat: International Edition will be release January 19 2016! Come check the new website and enjoy our moody teaser!
Dear travellers, we can now confirm: Qasir al-Wasat: International Edition will be released January 19th 2016! Come check the new website and enjoy our moody teaser!
A Sublte shader: making an invisible thing visible
Hey folks! Mauricio Perin, art director, on the helm today. I'd like to share a little of my (limited) experience in shader building with you guys.
A newbie approach to shading
First things first: working with Unity is super great because of the community. When we began working on Qasir I had absolutely know clue about shader coding. No clue about programming whatsoever to be honest. So it all started with Unity's shader documentation and lurking on the Unity Answers database.
When it started to get shady
After deciding the kind of effect we needed to achieve (I had something between Ghost in the Shell's cloaking camo and the Mortal Kombat movie Reptile in mind) the basic shader to start with seemed to be the Stained Glass/Heat Wave available in many variations throughout Unity's forums. The fine tuning consisted of adding highlights and shadow to the bump map based distortion.
Three shades of invisible
The final result consists of a greyscale bump map, a slider to fine tune the amount of distortion, a black texture with highlights and a white texture with shadings. Here are the three, as unlit materials, side by side with the final result:
I've made all the textures with alpha here, just so they'd work properly as standalones, but the first one is grey in around the character, the second black and the third white.
And if you have any questions please come say hello on twitter!
Cheers!
PS: By the way, the individual textures are named Liquid, Venom and Solidus. And in case you're wondering, the texture used when Subtle is visible is named Solid.
In this edition of letters from Qasir we bring you details about the narrative development, including the creation of the protagonist and how Its strong personality influenced many of our creative decisions. So step over this chalk circle, hold tight to this ritual key and let us guide you to a world far away from here.
- A creature from another world
As we mentioned in previous letters, Qasir al-Wasat began with the concept of an invisible protagonist and all the implications that it brings. This trait would become the core influence on the game’s creative decisions, especially the character's personality and the game’s narrative.
It is only natural, then, that we began the development of Qasir´s narrative by understanding Its protagonist as best as we could.
Being invisible and wishing to remain unnoticed, Subtle’s possible interactions with the human world would always be cold and distant. But more than Its physical relation to this world, our protagonist's detachment became reflected in Its reproachful opinions of humans. In this way, It always takes the role of an outsider.
The invisible nature of this creature and the medieval setting we had in mind implied some sort of supernatural origin, a dæmon from another plane of existence. In researching suitable options for Its home dimension, we came across this occultism manual called Ars Goetia. Through it we gained understanding of the 72 governing spirits and went on to establish Goetia itself as a full-fledged world. A warring realm, where other Goetians would be fighting an endless war, result of their strong individual personalities and a complete absence of self-restrictions. A strong and yet delicate hierarchy is in place, as these powerful, and mostly brute, spirits keep struggling for power and supremacy.
Different from Its compatriots, we decided Subtle would have a fragile constitution, making It much more careful about Its actions. To survive in such a world It must observe, be furtive and make the right decisions. That doesn't mean It is less ambitious than Its compatriots, as Subtle is definitely up for challenges and isn’t afraid to take risks.
- In the eyes of a demon
When taking a creature such as Subtle to the human world there is a cognitive shock that keeps the spirit distant and critical of humans and their behavior. In the eyes of this Spirit, humanity, in general, is weak willed and unable to do what’s necessary to effect into the world their true desires.
Nonetheless, Subtle is curious about their way of living (a singular trait in a Goetian), and even more curious about human creations, objects of art in every format. This is Subtle’s redeeming trait.
To use this during the game development, we created a scale comparing things Subtle would distance itself of (seeing them as caricatures and archetypes) and things It would see with fresher eyes, in more detail, and with more praise. This way, humans would be at one end of the spectrum, and objects of art at the other. This would become a central influence in the game’s creative development, especially when related to the asset’s creation.
- Building a fortress, stone by stone
In parallel to the protagonist development, there was also the process of creating a mysterious palace. The setting to which Subtle’s would be summoned to should be an interesting one, from the spirit’s point a view. Therefore, it should be somewhere it would like to explore and understand better.
Having decided for a medieval Syrian setting, it was only natural we would take inspiration from the One Thousand And One Nights tales. All of this made o Qasir al-Wasat a palace of wonders, with infinite treasures and a deep mystery. Ancient forces that are built into the fortress, creating and unknown territory even for those who think they know the place. To this setting, we added a powerful wizard, one with the knowledge that might be useful to our protagonist, and several inhabitants from different backgrounds and with singular stories.
- How we told the story
As the players go through Qasir al-Wasat, they walk alongside Subtle and follow what interests It and what It would normally do or react. Apart from inlaid elements, the narrative is revealed through three main avenues.
The first one is navigating through space. By exploring the palace the player creates its own narrative. As the player walks around Qasir and decides to pay attention to some objects or to listen to some of the inhabitants, a new story naturally emerges.
The second is listening to dialogs and monologs by the other inhabitants. Some of this stories are only musings about the inhabitant’s life, but sometimes Subtle might discover important information on the central narrative. Having several narratives inside a central story corroborates to the A Thousand Nights feeling, as traditionally a character inside one will be the narrator to another, and in this one there will be another story, and so on.
The last way in which Qasir’s tells its main plot is through what we called Remarkables: objects and letters that might catch Subtle’s interest and which help in the exposition of deeper or simply more complex information. Doing so through beautiful artistical objects not only keeps the spirit interest’s in character, they also establish an atmosphere of magic and wonder.
Using these elements we built a system where the player could navigate and make their own choices. There is no morality into the game itself - mostly because the protagonist has a very straightforward moral system Itself - but there are choices that are more or less in character. The game was built in a way that staying in character would help the player achieve more interesting results.
Long before we started working on Qasir, our creative director, Bruno Bulhões, had a dream In which he played a game. But the game didn’t exist in the real world. There was however a game very similar to it in many ways, a Square Soft title from 1994 that never saw the lights of western markets: Live a Live for the Super Famicon.
This unconventional J-RPG opens up with seven different storylines for the player to choose, and they can be played in any order. The different plots may eventually connect in some way, but one of them in special is very dear to Qasir al-Wasat. In “Secret Orders” a young ninja called Oboro-maru must infiltrate a japanese feudal castle packed with guards to kill a political target.
Some elements of the game mix fiction with historical figures, and the people living in the castle are not all combatants, some are just peaceful commoners carrying on their lives, and it’s up to the player to decide what will be of them. The game in Bruno’s dream was in essence a variation of Oboro’s chapter in Live a Live, except the main character was invisible at all times and it took place in a middle eastern fortress. Sounds familiar?
Qasir Letters #01: On the conjuration of video games
Hello, dear travelers!
We've been posting some drops about the game in here, but starting with this letter we’ll account the many steps and winding paths we took to create Qasir al-Wasat in detail. And today we'll start from the very beginning: from the establishment of our team and development of various experiments to the conception of Qasir and the International Edition. So follow us closely, as we guide you through this crossing in the sands of time.
— Dawn of the first day
Let’s go back to 2007. Independent games where just starting to get traction then, and the discussion over whether games where an artistic medium was in everyone's mouths. In this year, six college students with no previous experience in the game industry got together with the purpose of developing video games. Those where us.
We went on to create Aduge Studio, a small Brazilian development team with big dreams of pushing the boundaries of game’s expression. We would look up to games like Flow, Audiosurf, Facade, Aquaria and Braid (most of which were still being developed at the time). As every young team, we were quite naive back then, believing we could summon a game into existence through sheer tenacity.
The team back in 2009, from left to right:
Anderson Vermonde, a creative and enthusiastic engineer. The lead programmer.
Mauricio Perin, illustrator and history enthusiast (to put it mildly). The graphic artist.
Bruno Bulhões, with an encyclopedic knowledge of games. The creative director, game designer and programmer.
Ingrid Skåre, who has been writing weird stories since high school and hasn't lost the habit. The narrative director.
Marcel Pace, a drummer with a love for audio experiments. The sound designer.
Thiago "Beto" Alves, enticed by extravagantly difficult challenges. The game and level designer.
— A road filled with experimentations
We began our wanderings by developing several small games, two of which are particularly interesting for Qasir’s story. First came Semblante, a simple platformer with shadow and light mechanics that also tried its hand at Jungian concepts. Semblante’s protagonist is a faceless being in a journey to meet his Shadows. These are parasitic creatures that can suck the protagonist’s life force, and are only repealed by light. Though the journey can be completed by avoiding them, the game’s real ending only happens if the player chooses to join her Shadows.
Semblante made it clear that we as creators were interested in approaching challenging concepts, ones that could be really tough to translate into game systems but would bring a deeper message to the piece.
The next project brought to our method a great deal of care for the overall consistency. This was the Tsar Project, a speculative pre-production that could have been our first large scale game. Tsar is also Qasir’s spiritual predecessor, as both concern the same universe and protagonist, just in a different time and geographic frame. Instead of Qasir's 12th century Syria, Tsar was set in 16th century Russia, inside of the Moscow Kremlin.
Tsar Project would eventually be deemed too complex for our abilities at the time, and instead of toning down quality we decided to change scope; not to rescale Tsar itself, but to create a new game with the same theme and lore that we could deliver with proper polish and care. This was the beginning of Qasir.
— The creative evolution of Qasir al-Wasat
It all starts with the concept of an invisible protagonist and extends through all the implications this brings. This protagonist, who we'll call Subtle here to avoid spoilers, would eventually be defined as a spirit from another plane. A Goetian Spirit from the Canaanite occultism, It visits the human world in order to observe and explore. The invisibility brought in a lot of interesting dynamics and became the core of the game's vision. It also oriented every other aspect of the development, which we will explore in detail in future letters.
As these elements were transferred from the Tsar Project to Qasir al-Wasat, the game drew from the Arabian Nights tales and the team took a long time developing the right atmosphere and studying historical references. Qasir started to develop its own identity, and the tales of Subtle’s journeys between worlds gained a new dimension.
From here on the game had a horizontal development, as we built up the fortress and level designs, most of which had to be rebuilt at least once (we weren’t afraid of scraping things down and starting again until it worked.)
Eventually, Qasir’s main merit would be its consonance. All its elements contribute to the vision and general concept of the game, each one in its own way. This was only possible due to the constant communication inside the team. Design decisions informed audio decisions, visual ideas influenced code ideas, the closeness of the team and frequent interaction of different expertises made the whole much more cohesive.
— Praise, Greenlight and a new start
Scaling down Tsar's Project in order to create Qasir proved to be a really wise decision, since during the game's development history we’ve had a great deal of positive responses. Before the present International Edition was even conceived the game was selected as a finalist for several festivals, including IndieCade and the first edition of the Brazilian Indie Games Festival.
When the game was greenlit on Steam, part of the original team set up to create the International Edition. And here we must take the time to thank all of the wonderful people who supported us. It's because of your backing that we decided to, with this new edition, make Qasir be everything our young hearts believed it could be. We've taken that award winning concept and put another level of polish and finesse to it.
We would also like to thank the amazing work of our translators: Nicolas Fourcroy, Vojtěch Skovajsa, Maria Vitória Miro, Marcel Weyers, Michał Zielinski, Mateusz Trebliński, Żaneta Kasperczyk, Piotr Królewicz, Francesco Riccobono, Fiammetta Marsella and Marco Tassani.
Can real-life architecture help you build your game's level design? Using the blueprint of a real building as the foundation of your game can benefit you in two ways: accelerating the development, and creating the feeling that people actually live or visit your structure.
During the development of Qasir al-Wasat we took inspiration in the palaces of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi and Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi. Both were built in the 8th century, much older than the 12th century setting of the game. This difference in age was actually quite appropriate since our idea to the palace in the game was that it's supposedly an older place, detached from the real world into a special realm. Therefore, in order to achieve this sense of oldness and to anchor our fortress in the real world, we decided to model al-Wasat as a third brother of the existing twin palaces. Our first step was taking a good look at the architectural plants of the original al-Hayr palaces. Here is a comparison of one of the Syrian palaces' blueprints and one of the initial versions of Qasir's map.
The map would eventually go through a series of changes as the game design demanded alterations. On a first approach we believed the architecture could be quite literal. However, in order to keep a good game flow and hold players attention, some liberties had to be taken.
Add to this the mystical qualities of al-Wasat, and our overall Arabian Nights fantasy mood, the final geometry of the palace is nothing to be found on our world!
By the way, if your game uses historical reconstruction this can be particularly cool.
Photographs:
1. al-Sharqi Palace Western Gates by Susana F. S.
The appearance of characters in Qasir al-Wasat changed a lot during development. The first version was carried from Qasir's older brother, called Tsar Project.
Later variations were influenced by research on period clothing and the style of illustration found in Persian Miniatures.
From that we worked to balance the proportions so characters would be more distinguishable and expressive during gameplay.
How do you balance accuracy and creativity freedom in a historical fiction piece?
We've started working on Qasir al-Wasat with a heavy influence of historical events. The plot was originally meant to mix actual political facts from 12th century Syria with the trajectory of our thoughtful protagonist. But halfway through development, our creativity started to crumble under the heavy burden of maintaining historical consistency and touching sensitive cultural themes.
We then decided to drop of many of the main plot points related to actual History in order to create a more cohesive and enjoyable experience. The historical reference wasn't entirely abandoned, but was instead seeped into the environment and in the crafting of a believable game world.
We took the plot itself into a more fully fictional direction and that freed us to better develop characters and events. Without the rigid demands of leading the story up to historically accurate events, more space was left to imagination and to further develop that feeling of a story within a story, a series of fantastic events that we wanted to bring from the Arabian Nights tradition.
Image: 11th century Fatimid soldiers - Graham Turner
In searching for an authentic aesthetic to represent the Arabian fantasy and folklore in Qasir al-Wasat we came upon a vast production of Islamic figurative art. Specially in the early stages of that culture, up to the early modern age, there was a strong tradition of book illustrations, throughout Persia, India and Turkey. But none grabbed our attention as much as the Persian Miniatures of the Timurid Empire.
These little marvels were frequently covered with golden foil, and bound together in illustration books called a muraqqa. They could also be found in-between text pages of chronicles and history books.
Over time the understanding of Islam changed, and the practice of figurative art fell in disuse, but the legacy of these miniatures can be seen in later works in Europe and India that were greatly influenced by the Persian tradition.
--
Qasir al-Wasat: International Edition screenshot
Khosrow Barbados listening to music - Mirza Ali 1543
Shapur shows a portrait of Khusrau Shirin - Mirsza Ali 1543
The comic book Ramadan, part of @neil-gaiman's Sandman and illustrated by P. Craig Russell, was a big inspiration for our Arabian Nights mood.
What makes Ramadan so fantastical and supernatural? The excess, the incredibly specific stuff, the abundance and enormous beauties.
— "Historie du marchand avec l'éfrit" by Léon Carré.
How do you translate a specific mood into your game’s atmosphere? When working in Qasir, we knew the Arabian Night’s mood was a must. It was a long process, but if we had to simplify it in pointers those would be:
1. Gather as much reference as you can: Anything that sparks your interest should be included. We researched for illustrations, pictures of architecture, objects and how the people would dress, music, traditional instruments, stories and folktales. This is vital even if you think you already know your atmosphere, as you can always find a different way to see it or some cool new information.
2. Live and Breath it - If you’ve done a good research you will probably have piles of material. And you should get to know this material so you can reference it naturally while working on the game.
3. Every element created in the game should take the atmosphere into consideration - Is this the best way to create an asset? To write a dialog? To craft a feature? Every single element will add to the overall mood, and should reference the original material.
4. Each element of the game should connect to each other in a significant way - When the whole game is connected this way, something bigger seems to bind it together. That’s where the magic happens!
— Qasir al-Wasat screenshot.
If you use this method, do tell us!
If you don’t, what are you thoughts and suggestions?
