Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes · published
Dark and epic. Grandiose, yet sometimes claustrophobic. As complex and diverse as human society itself, Battlestar Galactica has always stood out more for its sociological and emotional depth than for its space opera spectacle—however masterful that spectacle may be.
Our art direction had to reflect this: the fight isn’t just about blood and chrome.
Within the scope and constraints of an indie game—much like what we achieved with Crying Suns—we worked meticulously to develop a unique art direction, faithful to the series’ DNA, while offering a wide range of possibilities to capture all the complexity we needed to portray.
The result of our research, which aimed to create a distinct visual identity, led us to combine various 2D and 3D artistic techniques, paying particular attention to lighting choices and color palettes to ensure visual continuity across the different settings and media.
Among those techniques, our character artist, Martin Bulteau, used 2D illustrations for character portraits. Our style research converged on a “chiaroscuro” style, featuring strong contrasts and the play of light and shadow. This technique offers a wide and expressive range allowing us to capture a diversity of roles, personalities, and emotions required by the narrative designers of the game.
Character research (Artbook)
Staying true to the franchise’s canons, our 3D artists Louis-Julien Berthe and Uriel Lacroix (both already artists on our previous game Crying Suns) used a mix of 3D modeling and pixel art textures to recreate the series’ iconic spaceships, as well as to create new models essential to our game design consistent with the series’ universe (see an example below). 3D design gave us the freedom to explore dynamic camera movement, varied angles, and modern visual effects—essential for staging our space opera.
New spaceship design (Artbook)
Finally, Christopher Anry, our main pixel artist, used his amazing mastery of this technique to create the game’s interior environments, but also the animated sequences illustrating the situations that players have to handle during the fleet management. Since Crying Suns, pixel art has been central to Alt Shift’s identity. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, it adds a subtle layer of abstraction to interior scenes—sparking imagination while paying tribute to the history of video games that shaped our creative vision.
Interior design (Artbook)
To illustrate this visual approach, we’ve created an artbook that showcases many of the elements mentioned above, including exclusive concept art and research materials. It will be available as downloadable content with the game on Steam upon its release, on May 11th! Don’t forget to put the game in your wishlist!
So say we all,
Frédéric Lopez, Art Director