Chrysopoeia: A Glimmer in the Dark
Art Direction, Concept Art, Artist & Narrative Designer
"Chrysopoeia: A Glimmer in the Dark is a pixel horror game inspired by classic RPG horror titles and the style of 90s dungeon crawler games.
It was made in Unity over the course of a month as a submission for the 19th RPG Maker Horror Game Jam," where it won second place.
Examples of environmental assets created for Chrysopoeia.
Sheet of pixel sprites for pushing, sitting, holding up the gem, and walking.
Narrative Excerpts: Inky Script
The script for this game was written in Inky, written collaboratively between three writers (myself, Enderesting, and AdriftAgain. The excepts below are examples of my writing in program.
Chrysopoeia follows two principal characters, so it was important to pack both of them with a lot of intrigue and personality! Throughout all the feedback on the demo, this was a consistent thread of success. Chrysopoeia was consistently rated highest in terms of story, creativity, and the style with which they were presented in the game jam it was created for.
Portrait Art
These sprites are displayed in a portrait box beside the text box, in the bottom corner of the screen. They give a more detailed and expressive look into the games characters than the smaller pixel sprites that the player moves around the screen. These portraits change according to the character currently speaking and their mood.
One of our characters was a gem, which made figuring out how to portray its emotions an interesting and fun challenge. I settled on some abstract and expressive lines around the gem to visually indicate its mood! The one on the left portrays happiness/excitement, and the one below annoyance/anger.
Title Screen
Concept Art
My process for designing the look of the game-- including color palates, maps, the look of the environments, the gem and adventurer.
Screenshots
Elements composed into a complete, playable picture!
