WHO WERE THE ARTISTS ON THE GAME, AND WHAT DID THEY BRING TO IT? Alongside myself, we had art support from Jamie Rollo and Ellian Rousseau who were immediately able to understand the spirit and tone of the game. They really raised the bar and I found it hard to keep up. Towards the end of development I also reached out to Lu Nascimento and Matt Frith, who came in and polished the remaining pieces of environment art when I just didn’t have the bandwidth to tackle it myself. I also can’t forget Lucy Kyriakidou, who created all of the characters. I was so impressed with her work that we brought her back towards the end of development to sketch out the character close-up scenes. These were then used as a foundation to render in pixel art. We were blessed with an amazing team on Loco Motive. I’d recommend every one of them in a heartbeat, and I hope we get to work together again!
WHAT INFLUENCES (WITHIN OR BEYOND GAMES) DID YOU DRAW FROM?
On The Orient Express, but we were also heavily inspired by classic LucasArts adventure games such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam & Max Hit The Road. The puzzle design, comedy timing, snappy dialogue and
click I’ve played that felt contemporary but still faithful to the series’ mechanics. I was really impressed by how well it worked with a gamepad. We looked at their choices when designing our own interface and controls, which is partly why Loco Motive feels just as good to play on Nintendo Switch as it does
WAS IT DIFFICULT TO NAIL DOWN YOUR ‘MODERN YET VINTAGE’ STYLE?
The main challenge was ensuring both elements complemented each other. The game is rendered natively at a very low resolution and then upscaled, so we were able to introduce modern lighting, and more to the game and have it render out at that lower
resolution.This method allowed applied to traditional pixel art. To improve accessibility
and readability, we opted for a high-resolution UI and dialogue text. However, we kept these elements simple to ensure they blended smoothly with the pixel art and didn’t stand out.
February/March 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
