Divine aesthetic
It was obvious I had to make the visuals next. Initially, I wanted to reuse the “Dream Arena” assets for this project which meant using the same four players in the party, but a suggestion from someone in feedback paved the way for me going for a different approach to the visuals.
“Lean into the magicky divine aesthetic.”
I have had a penchant of drawing “the divine” before. Throughout my artistic journey and in my process as a worldbuilder in high fantasy, I drew many iterations of gods and divinities before, mixing multiple inspirations from the scientific and the technological, to the surreal and otherworldly.
I alluded to it before when I brainstormed the layout for the website with the initial backdrop being something that is tied to the otherworldly. Tying Simulacrum’s aesthetic with what I was already drawing before would be simple. I just needed to push it into the forefront of my project.
It also gave way for a challenge for me. Simulacrum as a combat RPG simulator has little to no story as you play. This is intended. It is in the player’s power to create and customize whatever battle they want to make. What I can provide as the developer are default assets for the playable characters, the enemies, and the background: all of which are visual components. In a “game” with little to no story, how can I set the setting of a story through the game’s visuals?
The best way I could go through it would be how the enemy designs and playable character designs look in relation to each other. I also put some flavor text alongside the characters that people can read, should they be willing to.