Refining the visual design of Stray Gods' surreal songworlds
Deities. Romance. Murder. Musical Numbers. If you're someone who finds those words even remotely titillating, then Stray Gods is the roleplaying musical for you. Summerfall Studios' melodic adventure asks players to change their fate by harnessing the powers of musical persuasion to unravel the mystery behind the Last Muse Calliope's death.
As they untangle the tuneful tragedy, players will find themselves pulled into eclectic 'songworlds' that allow them to take center stage in a unique gameplay segment inspired by music videos. During these eclectic sequences, players must navigate a series of choices in order to finish the song and return to Stray Gods' neo-mythical reality.
Breaking down the visual design beats behind Stray Gods' "real weird" songworlds during a recent talk at Games Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) in Melbourne, Summerfall art director Ben Ee said the studio knew it needed a way to "visually distinguish when someone was in song versus in the diegetic real world," which essentially meant figuring out how to effectively communicate someone's plight as they sing and dance through their feelings.
Early iterations of Stray Gods' songworlds were conceived while the project was still known as Chorus, and veered towards simple, abstract colored rooms and prop-laden sets reminiscent of a broadway stage.
After receiving some valuable advice from Jin of BTS fame (via a text message that may or may not have been legitimate), the studio decided to pivot slightly and starting analyzing K-pop videos to better understand how to create a cohesive stage. "Looking at K-pop videos was truly inspiring because they often featured rooms with visual metaphors based on what they were singing about both in lyric and mood," explained
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