[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/90e0f3acec36e8713baf333dcd0fec6bfb5a6f47.png[/img] Hey everyone! Today I wanted to talk a bit about the place that inspired a lot of the visuals and tone in ITTA; Italy's Gardens of Bomarzo, also known as The Park of the Monsters, or Sarco Bosco... "Sacred Grove". [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/3859411e15a02745792adba02dc09fb720263b1c.png[/img] "The Sacred Wood" is located in Northern Italy, realised in 1552 by Vicino Orsini. His purpose for the garden was "only to relieve his soul" after the death of his wife. Wikipedia says the park was created, "Not to please, but to astonish", and with all the unusual and non-idyllic, otherworldly sculptures among the greenery, I can promise you that it does exactly that. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/eca9076d5b9f720d61f6694f10cb70e322503469.png[/img] It's a very eerie but beautiful place, and when I started work on ITTA, I pulled a lot of inspiration from photos I'd seen of it online. I was fortunate enough that when I told my publisher this, they decided to send me there to see it in person. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/30e2ba5b713c08b10294f68e6162987cdb13f99a.png[/img] I think, seeing these photos, you can probably understand a bit of where ITTA's aesthetic comes from. That surreal atmosphere and sense of strangeness and wonder is something I wanted players to experience. Itta, the heroine, is displaced, and it's my hope that I managed to communicate some of the strange beauty and menace she's seeing and feeling. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/adcb081404f63931202dc571192ed34f11d369fa.png[/img] These screenshots are taken from the first area of the game, which comes the closest to the Gardens of Bomarzo in terms of design and feel, "The Old Garden". While the other places Itta visits are a lot different in other ways, these gardens will always hold a special place in my heart. I hope that, when you play ITTA, I've managed to communicate even just a taste of how incredibly special places like this in our world are, and maybe inspire you to visit them yourself. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32153491/79879a69da0b2c7aa61f469a52c286437b5a190c.png[/img] Follow ITTA on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ittas_gun Thanks for reading, and don't forget to wishlist the game!