Deep Dive: From inspiration to coherence, building the world of Sifu
Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren’t really that simple at all.
Earlier installments cover topics such as implementing crossplay functionality in We Were Here Forever , how Strange Scaffold created seamless dialogue for narrative poker game Sunshine Shuffle , and o ptimizing a fully spray-painted world in Bombing!! 2: A Graffiti Paradise .
In this edition, Sifu art director, Paul-Emile Boucher sheds light on the perspective that went into developing the game's art direction.
This brilliant idea about a game lands on the table. Among pirates, Lovecraftian sci-fi monsters, medieval adventures, gloomy post-apocalyptic worlds, and all the other available themes out there, you have chosen your one and only, your precious! And then, you find yourself in front of a thousand different ways of executing your idea, seemingly piled up in a big stack of miscellaneous pieces of information, ambient inspiration, and endless references. How do you set the limits for your world-building to be coherent and enticing? Hopefully, our experience with Sifu can provide some interesting insights.
Straight from scratch, Sifu was destined to be a game about kung fu, an experience based on the ancient Chinese philosophy that promotes mastery through practice, an adventure that feels both cinematic and authentic. That's precise enough, isn't it? To a certain degree, yes. The clear early vision paved the way for the world-building approach and kept us gravitating toward a distinct creative direction.
On the other hand, on a topic such as kung fu, we could still swim
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