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The Art Of
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TOEM
Something We Made’s Lucas Gullbo guides Chris Wallace through the gorgeous art style behind the handdrawn adventure game TOEM
Lucas Gullbo
WAS THE FINAL APPEARANCE OF THE GAME CORE TO ITS INITIAL CONCEPT?
Yes! The art style was the one thing we always got a good response on. This led us to look for mechanics that somehow could enhance the visuals, and in our case the camera did just that!
WHAT INFLUENCES (WITHIN OR BEYOND GAMES) DID YOU DRAW FROM?
Mumin, Jan Lööf and Scandinavia in general!
TELL US HOW THE ART WAS CREATED AND BY WHOM?
The art was created by me (Lucas Gullbo) and was heavily driven from very early sketches and later on adapted into the more softer look it has today. Using limitations such as removing color and taking distance from a 3D modelling software forced to create assets differently.
The art has two separate workflows depending if it’s a NPC or Environment. Most of the environment assets are created by “stitching” together flatten quads to create a silhouette and have a more direct
“The characters (and some props) are made to be billboarded and have separate limbs to create animations (like a puppet) instead of individual animation frames. NPC have a more soft visual feel to them as they are not bound by the “stitching” rule. This resulted in a more cubic / pop up book effect!”
clarity to what is ground and what is a wall. These quads have different sprite textures on them and the texture is what is leading the shape making.
The characters (and some props) are made to be billboarded and have separate limbs to create animations (like a puppet) instead of individual animation frames. NPC have a more soft visual feel to them as they are not bound by the “stitching” rule. This resulted in a more cubic / pop up book effect!
CAN YOU PUT ANY NUMBERS ON THE SCALE OF THE PROJECT?
TOEM is the biggest project we’ve worked on to date, it took us a lot of back and forth to get the game to where it is today, the game was scrapped and remade four times before the camera mecanic was born, so there was a lot to go through!
WHAT TOOLS/TECHNIQUES WERE USED TO CREATE THE GAME’S LOOK?
About 99% of the TOEM art assets uses: A standard computer mouse, Paint.Net and some custom tools to create assets within Unity. There is nothing extra to it really!
HOW DID THE ART EVOLVE WITH THE PROJECT (IF AT ALL)
In the very early beginning the artstyle had more shading and less rounded shapes. As development went on things started to deviate from each other and you could see what assets were made early-on vs later. The detail was all over the place, especially in the textures, so by reducing the details in the texture (such as smoother shading etc.) we put more focus on using separate assets and game elements to add detail in the world. Above: I made this specific artwork as a YouTube thumbnail for our trailer that aired during a Nintendo Indie World Showcase. We liked it so much, we ended up using it as much as possible!
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Right: This is a very early sketch where we brainstormed a bunch of ideas. This is the first time we thought about the camera which ended up being central to the game. You can also recognise a few characters, the bus and the hotel from the first level. Left: The very first sketch of what came to be TOEM. It was drawn back in 2018 and as you can see, it was a lot different, the atmosphere was also not as cute and cuddly as it is today. It was even considered to be a mobile game!
Above: This is a screenshot from the final game which shows the player taking a cool selfie in front of the hotel owner! This quest was a lot of fun to make and ended up being a core for designing the rest!
Left: As you probably get by now, we brainstorm a lot of things by sketching things out. This is a sketch for what would become the “harbor region” or Stanhamn for those familiar. Again, a lot of this made it in the final game.
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Above: Another one of the brainstorming sessions, this time for the city region. It’s a very busy and dense region. We also play a lot with perspective here, hiding graffiti to force players to use the first person perspective of the camera to find secrets.
Left: We designed the regions one after the other and so the mountain region was the last one we needed to tackle. We were pretty exhausted at the time and running out of time but we are very happy with how it came out in the end.
Below: We put extra love into some of the characters in the game and we made a special portrait when you take a picture of them, sometimes after you helped them with a short quest.
Left: This is the cover art I made for the TOEM’s original soundtrack. We’ve been working with Jamal Green and Launchable Socks, the two composers for the game, very closely from the start and we’ve inspired each other a lot throughout the game.
