[h3][b]CW: flashing lights[/b][/h3] Hi there, Tartarus Key fans–Leo and Kevin here, and happy holidays! Vertical Reach has been hard at work on the game, so we wanted to give you a closer look at our progress throughout development, starting with the decisions and considerations that went into the game’s iconic visual style, which adds so much to the haunting vibes of the game. The Tartarus Key uses a retro aesthetic strongly influenced by PS1 classics, like the iconic Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Multiple horror series got their start on the system; as a result, many people find the look and genre impossible to separate. There’s something truly fascinating, off-putting, eerie—any uneasy or spooky adjective would work here—about the look of PS1 games. Growing up, even a game like Spyro could suddenly look at a lot more menacing after dark. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40813934/7640b1018994c1b8fade47be7d9ac046a8866f73.gif[/img] We’ve enjoyed trying to imbue The Tartarus Key with that same energy. Paintings with textures just low-resolution and wobbly enough that appear to have their eyes follow you around the room. NPC's that, even though they're simply staring in your direction, suddenly take on a frightening quality—incapable of blinking, their faces wobbling unendingly in time to their idle animations. We had playtesters ask why we had the detective character occasionally wink at them, and with a small chuckle, I got to respond with a deliciously scary, [i]"We didn't.”[/i] I think there's a lot to be said about retro 3D artsyles. Like with Spyro after dark, sometimes the spookiest parts of our game are the ones you imagine. But what about the parts [i]we[/i] made? When it comes to the art of The Tartarus Key, we're aiming to feel authentic instead of being authentic. Being authentic would require setting hard rules, and while making a game within those limitations would be an exciting challenge, it isn't what we set out to do. At its core, The Tartarus Key uses many of the PS1's iconic visual 'quirks', we've got: texture perspective warping, vertex wobbling, low-resolution textures, low poly models, limited colour depth, heavy fog and tragically short draw distance all rendered at a beautifully tiny 360p. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40813934/385195ed141a20f9b8878dde2b505de6c7db9e75.gif[/img] These alone give the game a distinctive look, but as we're not working with actual PS1 hardware we're aiming to modernize some of the rougher edges. Borrowing from the power of future technology we break the following rules: [list] [*] [b]Widescreen[/b]—4:3 resolution is great, and our game fully supports it, but we've put a lot of work into how this game looks, so we wanted to give it the love it deserves in full 16:9! [*] [b]Shadows[/b]—The majority of PS1 games used vertex lighting which was only as accurate as your number of vertices... so usually not very. Considering a lot of The Tartarus Key is spent exploring dark rooms with a flashlight, we opted to go with more modern shadows. [*] [b]Number of on-screen objects[/b]—Modern low-poly art expectations have moved on from what hardware was genuinely capable of at the time. Your PC can render a heck of a lot more than the PS1 could, so we're putting its power to work. Instead of rendering a single cube with a bookshelf texture, The Tartarus Key renders each book individually. It's not the most authentic artistic choice, but it's more important to us that it looks and feels appropriately low-poly. [*] [b]Modern post-processing effects[/b]—We use post-process vignettes, colour grading, ambient occlusion, and other tricks that were simply impossible on the PS1’s hardware but add to the game’s overall atmosphere. [*] Also, [b]The Tartarus Key is a first-person game[/b], and those were relatively uncommon back in the PS1 era. [/list] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40813934/7d2ae1270cf6144c193cbfd5d2e8336715f869d2.gif[/img] This led to adapting the art direction in interesting ways. Using Resident Evil as an example, let's take a closer look. Resident Evil has fixed cameras, sometimes encompassing a fairly large area. Characters had to remain recognizable at low resolutions and great distances. Capcom did this by making character models realistic but chunky, ensuring they'd be visible at a distance. As is common with early PS1 games, each character was made up of discrete, separate models—for example, thighs were separate from calves. This was easier to animate in lieu of joint-based systems, which were new at the time. The lower rendering resolutions of consoles at the time gave characters a distinct capsule look while making it easier to hide the disjointed body parts that made up each model. Texture-wise, all objects are meant to be realistic to visually match the prerendered backgrounds. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/40813934/6aa35385f0a4f696f43c99d15c2c286c9c56b9cb.gif[/img] However, we took a more stylized approach with The Tartarus Key. Our character models are sleeker, as we expect the player to see them up close and personal. This meant we could worry less about how characters look from a distance. We opted to have characters be made up of one mesh; our models are slightly higher poly than the average Resident Evil character, so we felt a joint-based animation solution would look nicer. Our textures are also more stylized and painterly, which was a purposeful decision so that characters will more closely match their in-game dialogue portraits. That’s it from us for now. Thanks for reading! Now, why not kick back, relax, and forget about the fact you’re trapped in a big, spooky mansion with this relaxing Tartarus Key holiday yule log? 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