Building The World of Sorana

Building the environments of Sorana required many discussions about the lore and history of the world. Many of these stories were never meant to be revealed to the player but would serve as a design guideline for the art team. We wanted each artist to internalize the world of Stormforge so that as a team, we are designing architecture, props, spaces, that are unique and specific to our game.

Stormforge is an open-world survival crafting game I co-art directed at Roboto Games. The game has a 2D graphic novel visual style though it’s fully built in 3D. Some of the challenges with Stormforged involved finding the right visual style that appeals to the survival crafting gamer, balancing the graphic nature of the visual style while keeping the world feeling fully developed and visually sophisticated, and giving the game a darker tone so it’s not mistaken as a game for a younger audience. With the character and environment page, I tried to capture a sample of the thinking and process that went into their development. And of course, none of this is possible without the talented art team that made our artistic vision a reality. You can also learn more about Stormforge on Steam!

Biome Development

For public alpha Stormforge is aiming for three complete biomes (forest, desert, and mountain). Each biome would have its own complete set of environmental assets such as vegetation, terrain features, biome specific VFX, and elemental themed props. Due to Roboto’s small team size and limited timeline, we leaned heavily into asset packs and building the world in a modular way. The goal was to reuse as much as possible and move fast.

A Darker tone

At Roboto Games we ran multiple user research tests to make sure our game is attracting the right audience and meeting player expectations. One feedback that was concerning is that multiple participants thought our game was too cartoony and assumed it is for a young audience. To address that concern, we wanted to darken the tone of the game to make it feel more scary and mature. To achieve this, we introduced more shadowed areas, added more contrast, and adjusted the color palette to be less saturated and even. In addition to lighting adjustments, we also focused on creating spaces with limited line of sight that makes ambush more unpredictable. This heightens the sense of danger.

Stormforge reveal trailer

Feedback Example

Vendor fire Delivery:

Early dragon fire breath vfx from vendor

Feedback

Simplify details within the fire so it is more graphic and a clearer visual read, we should aim for larger graphic shapes instead of small bits and pieces of fire.
To keep it on style, we should remove gradients within the fire. We should stick to posterize rendering using only 2-3 colors.
Lets match color to the troll charge up and the storm fire ring for continuity, with yellow orange fire and a reddish outline
If they can, would be good to have the fire coming out in world space (always flowing upward and reacting to movement of the player) instead of based on the surface normal or object space

Visual reference of other fires vfx in game

Paintover of before and after illustrating written feedback of reducing the amount of color used, aiming for larger more graphic shapes, and applying world space to fire particles so it’s flying upward

Paintover still of what the fire on weapons should look like

Paintover before & after illustrating simplifying the amount of detail to achieve a more graphic look and clearer read

Final:

Credits:

Yezi Xue - Art Director Stephan Royer - Art Director Michael Dickinson - Concept Artist Alexei Gil - 3D Environment Artist Ian Jacob - 3D Character Artist Robert Tighe - Lead Animator Curt Bereton - CEO Mathilde Pignol - CCO Monica Ion - Freelance Concept Artist Régis Torres - Freelance Concept Artist