Indie Game Spotlight: Sable
Pack your bags and get ready for an adventure with this week’s Indie Game Spotlight. Sable is an open-world exploration in which you play the titular Sable, a young girl who is leaving home for the first time. You’ll explore the desert world by travelling across its landscapes on your hoverbike, exploring ancient ruins, and meeting nomadic peoples.
We chatted with Gregorios Kythreotis, the lead artist and designer on the project at Shedworks, about the game’s origins, aesthetics, and the power of GIFs. Read on!
First of all, Sable looks GORGEOUS. How did the team come up with the game’s aesthetic, and what were some inspirations?
The art is inspired by our favourite 2D animation and graphic novel artists—Moebius, Francois Schuiten, Studio Ghibli, and Katsuhiro Otomo, among many others. We also looked to other visual media, like architecture, for inspiration as to how to create a believable and in-depth world that is interesting to explore. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was another big inspiration for us.
Where did the idea behind Sable originate from?
The core concept comes from exploring ideas of scale and loneliness: seeing something gigantic on the horizon and creating a kind of ambient adventure of the journey through the desert towards it. One of the earliest references was The Force Awakens—particularly the opening scene—but we wanted to get away from the idea that this was the tale of a hero escaping their planet to save the galaxy. What if you weren’t the chosen one? What if you were just a normal person who lives in this land? We wanted to try to make that idea interesting, in and of itself.
Can you tell us about any ideas or concepts that were discarded during the development process?
Originally, I think we thought of it as being a sort of survival game, but it felt wrong for the tone we were going for. We wanted something more narrative-driven and accessible for players of all skill sets, so we’ve tried to keep the scope relatively tight when it comes to mechanical features. We might end up having to cut some of the world-building, but we haven’t had to do that yet.
How have you used Tumblr to tap into the community while creating the game?
We’ve been sharing GIFs mostly, we know that Tumblr likes GIFs and our game happens to GIF quite well, so that fits what we’re doing nicely.
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to create a game?
I find generic advice hard to give because it’s so situational; you have to apply critical thinking to any piece of advice you get. The thing I wish we had done earlier, is to play to our strengths as a team—we’re doing that now, and it’s working well for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s advice that applies universally.
Want to learn more about Sable? Check out their Tumblr over at @shedworksgames, or dive into their website for game updates and more.
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