Below are some of the mood/concept drawings that I made while we where trying to figure out the look and feel of Aluna.
Since the original pitch I made for this game I wanted the game to be set at night, But at the same time I didn’t necessarily want the game to feel scary or like a horror game. I wanted it to feel surreal and filled with a certain sense of wonder or fascination. The image that always pops into my head is of a single candle in a darkened room, comforting and captivating in it’s own way, but maybe with the tiniest bit of unease lurking just beyond it’s lights reach.
To try to convey this mood when I first pitched the game I drew some rough, mood/color studies, that focused a lot on color. Below you can see one of the earliest drawing I made like this, from back when the game was going to be set in a city.
The focus of these drawings was to try to capture the feeling of the game through the use of lighting and color. Using dark blue instead of black for areas of darkness, using warm lighting to contrast with the blue and to add a certain sense of comfort and warmth to a setting that could easily feel cold and isolating with different lighting.
After we decided to change the setting to be inside of the main characters house, I made some more of these drawing to help act as a starting point of how the game should develop visually and to help give the other artists a better sense of the games general mood. Some of the pieces I drew can be seen below.
