Sable in pursuit of readability

gamedeveloper.com:

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but it's difficult to do anything but when glancing at Sable.

Shedworks' open-world adventure immediately catches the eye thanks to an alluring low-poly 2D aesthetic that incorporates smatterings of French cartoonist Moebius, acclaimed Studio Ghibli movies, and architects like Carlo Scarpa.

As explained by Sable creative director Gregorios Kythreotis at GDC 2022, however, the game's unique style was as much a product of the team's limitations as their ambition.

For instance, Kythreotis explained how the game's now-iconic dune sea was largely born out of necessity. Shedworks was a small team, and they knew they had douse themselves with a healthy dose of realism to avoid scope creep.

"One of the key reasons the game is set in a desert is because we knew we couldn't make a really detailed open world at this scale," said Kythreotis. "The game is about 10km by 10km in size. The desert could have probably been something like an ocean, but anything more dense would have been challenging for us. 

"We always thought of the dunes as a seascape and the locations that players would visit as islands of content. This really provided a focus for development because we could hone in on specific locations and allow the spaces in between to breathe a little bit. They also act as points of interest for the player in a world that could be really disorienting."

Although the team's primary focus when it came to Sable's visuals was creating something they personally liked, they also knew they had to be able to effectively execute on that style.

Shedworks had to unearth a style that's quick to produce, quick to iterate on, and visually consistent -- while also standing out. After a bit of exploration,