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Dead Cells dev blog - Art Design Deep Dive: Giving back colors to cryptic worlds

by rawmeatcowboy
03 April 2018
GN Version 5.0

Hello, my name is Gwenaël Massé, and with Thomas Vasseur, we're the two artists of the indie studio Motion Twin. Among others things, I’m tasked with designing the backgrounds of Dead Cells and I hope that sharing some insights on our production process may, somehow, help someone someday.

So, let’s get to it. We laid the foundations of the artistic direction of Dead Cells on three pillars: a saturated color palette, Celtic architecture and the theme of alchemy.

What: A saturated color palette in a cryptic locale

We chose to use highly saturated color spectrums for several reasons. The first would be the consistency between the gameplay and the art direction. Saturated backgrounds and characters really shine when it comes to keeping the player awake and alert, drawing the attention of the eye to any new element appearing on the screen.

This leads the player to have a better understanding of the action and consequently a faster reaction time when responding to potentially lethal threats. Which feels great for a game wanting to be as fast-paced as we want Dead Cells to be.

Full dev blog here