"Hill"
When I learned that this would be the place where the main protagonist of At Winter’s End would speak for themselves without the help of their dice for the first time, I imagined “Hill” being large and daunting, while still having an air of freedom and possibility. Figuring out the composition and perspective for this piece was difficult and involved a lot of iterations, both because of technical and storytelling reasons. On the technical side, I needed to make sure this piece would work with the overworld sprites and the protagonist’s walk cycle. However, I also did not want to fully rule out or compromise any unique perspective angles or layouts we thought would best communicate our ideas because of that.
Once I figured out the main composition, I researched flowers whose meanings I thought fit the game’s themes of connection, change and letting go, but were also appropriate to see towards the end of winter or early spring. Overall, “Hill” taught me a lot about intentionality and helped me figure out how to better communicate a larger overarching narrative through a piece.
Process
