FOUR Secrets To Gorgeous Game Art!

There's something about Cult of the Lamb that sticks out like a sore thumb in all the right ways. The visuals are edgy, stunning, dark, beautiful, all at the same time. And it's no surprise this game completely blew up and frankly became one of the most successful indie titles of all time. What's even stranger is the creators, including my buddy Jimp, they never really felt like the game was that good. But even still, they followed through even though they felt insecure on four key principles of gorgeous game art. And I think we're insanely lucky to get them right now. straight from the lamb's mouth. So, what are some things that you slowly learned after, you know, I guess it was a decade of making games? What are some things that you learned from the art side that make a game eye-catching that make people stop and stare at the game? What are some things that you feel game developers need to to apply and that you applied to Cult of the Lamb? So with the the kind of the the god on a floating whale idea and we had like lots of different ideas and we actually kind of got far enough with that idea that we

were pitching it to publishers at GDC and we kind of they weren't quite as interested as we had hoped and we kind of went back to the drawing board and we were like well why is that and we kind of realized that the idea was quite convoluted and we there was a lot of different ideas going on and we really needed to find that gem and that kind of concept and idea and tagline that that people would resonate with and that kind of goes through from the the idea of what the actual game is all the way through to the art style as well and they kind of all have to be connected. So I think for us it was from like a an art point of view it was once we had that idea like how do we attach a style and imagery that kind of helps elevate that and and everything kind of needs to all be working together towards the same goal. The idea of of of start your own cult once we had that idea and that theme there was so much like visual identity that we could take from that. all the the religious imagery and and making sure that that uh goes through every single thing from the the character designs to the colors you're

using to the imagery throughout the world. Um it all kind of works together to to support that idea of starting your own cult. I I think that was really a light bulb moment and we were kind of I don't know if you've ever been in this position where you're kind of you've got all these little nuggets of ideas and you're trying to piece them together. you kind of got these characters in mind but they don't quite work for you and you got you know what the game is but it's like oh I don't know and then you for us anyway you kind of we had the the idea of starting your own cult and then everything else kind of came real naturally after that. I know the feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get I get it because um we're in that same exact situation with our game Twisted Tower. Stylistically we were kind of all over the place. We knew we liked Bioshock, right? But that wasn't that wasn't enough. And so for for two years, well, it was probably about a year, a year and a half, it felt like we were sort of floundering and trying just trying to keep our head above water and not get drowned in too many ideas, too many visual flavors and visual styles.

And it wasn't until we realized that it's a first person shooter fairy tale. Nice. That's when we go, got it. That's the style. And so you're so you are so spot on when you say that the hook dictated the visual style. Yes. Was it luck? The reason I say that is because your strength your yours and Julian's strength is cute, hyper cute characters. And that was like I I think all the way back to the Happy Tree Friends. Do you remember Happy Tree Friends? Yeah, of course. And I'm sure that was an inspiration for you guys because happy Well, the reason why Happy Tree Friends and for th those of you listening who don't know, it's just basically bunch of forest creatures. Super cute. Kind of like Warner Brothers vibes or even even like a kid like a Nick Jr. show, but all of them are getting like slaughtered, right? That was from like early 2000s. I remember watching those videos and feeling really cool when I was in middle school. But the reason why those did so well is because there was contrast, right? You have super cute and then super dark and

you slam them together and you get something that's viral. When it comes to cult of the lamb, was that an intentional thought process of we're going to create contrast? How do we create contrast? Okay, let's put cults next to cute creatures. It was definitely a conscious decision to I mean I think it came in two parts. The the first part was a lot of our previous games um and like Adventure Powers for example, which is like really quite cute and kind of silly. Um, and I think we saw a lot of comments of people thinking it was like a kids game and kind of and I think as soon as you have that cartoon style, uh, particularly the our specific style, which is quite like Saturday morning cartoon, I I think it instantly puts quite a lot of people off. And then we were sort of seeing games like Don't Starve and Binding of Isaac, had a real element of darkness to them and and had huge success. I think it was so it was definitely a conscious decision to that we wanted to keep the kind of cute cartoony stuff but we also really wanted to um to add the darkness and and make it a bit messed up. I think

coming from flash games for me at least I think the the super cute cartoon stuff went really well and was really popular and and that I kind of fell into a little bit of a trap doing that. But then going to sort of steam games I think the audience is quite different there. So, it was it was definitely like quite early on um something that we wanted to do before we had the the cult idea. And then I think when we had that the idea, start your own cult, it just it all fell into place because we're like, right, well, you're this kind of, you know, satanic uh cult leader, but then the animals are really cute and that kind of juxtaposition felt really natural and it came very naturally and it was a theme that we wanted to explore as well was the sort of the good and evil, the light and dark, the the cute and the horrific. Um and and as a cult leader like you're given this power. Do you do good or do you do bad? It was almost a happy accident um in that the the kind of theme eventually came together so well with with the art direction. Well, you know, I see the game and I when I when I look at everything that from the game play to

the story to the hook to the themes and and even to the visuals, everything it leans on one primary principle and this is just my theory. It's all about contrast. It's like there's contrast in everything. Mhm. Can we talk about that when it comes to color and and and even like marketing material? Like when when I look at cult of the lamb, your color palette is so bizarre, but it it's I can I can almost taste it. It's so flavorful. I like how does it taste? It tastes kind of like a a a really sugary cupcake with like jalapenos in it. It's like So I know, right? It's but you wouldn't think it works, but there's actually desserts that do that where they it's like you've got contrast of two two seemingly different flavors that wouldn't work together, but they work. And so I'm curious if you could speak to just some tips and tricks and your

thought process behind color theory when it comes to cult of the lamb. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think very early on the project originally, we wanted to make the whole game in this very limited color palette. And I think we were like, you know, let's you got to pick five colors and everything in the game has got to use just those colors and there's no other colors allowed. And and and I think um some games do that really well and keep things really striking. For us, that idea kind of fell away a little bit because I think we wanted all these different color animals and we wanted the the biomes to feel quite different color-wise, but that that idea um still kind of persisted through a lot of the marketing images and and the characters. Picking a a palette to that kind of defines your game early on can be really powerful. Even if you don't like exclusively use it for the artwork, I think it can really help form the identity of the game. So I think with cotton the lamb you got the the black and the red which are kind of quite evil and dark but then is had the uh the kind of light white cream color to kind of represent the

lightness and also there's like a kind of bright neony greeny blue that we use as well um which is quite a light sort of holy holy color. Yeah. And I think that really helped particularly with like the UI and the the kind of the marketing stuff to just keep things consistent and kind of keep like an a visual identity for the game that kind of goes through everything. We went through a lot of pre-production and we we kind of came up with this color scheme and the the fonts and some symbols, basically a set of rules and visual motifs that we wanted to use and kind of created a bit of a bible. And that was really useful just as we kind of went through the the full production of the game to to have that to refer back to and make sure everything kind of uses some of these ideas. And I think especially when you're kind of bringing on other artists as well, like later in the process, it's really useful to have those those rules you set out for the the world and the the imagery and the the identity of the game. um to have that to refer back to um and make sure that you're kind of yeah just it's

that's permeating through every every aspect of it. Did you guys ever stretch your legs outside of those rules? Was there ever a moment where you go, you know what, we need to do a little bit of pink here or we need to do a little bit of yellow here. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's kind of why Yeah. Originally, as I say, we were trying to use this very limited palette, but it kind of felt a little bit too limiting in the in to use for everything. Yeah. We we wanted the game to feel really vibrant as well and I think all our games have always have been and yeah super colorful and like a Saturday morning cartoon. So I think there's definitely areas that you can con can constra stray from it but sometimes it does just look out of place. So I think it's for me it's just been a bit of trial and error um and making certain things pop that you want to kind of draw attention to. I think with all the all the kind of core things and the main visual language in the game we we do try and stick to it uh to those kind of core colors that we use for the identity. But yeah, I I do find myself just putting in other stuff here and there just to kind of make it feel unique in the world kind of thing. Like for like for example, we we got all

these buildings in the cult, right? And and a lot of it is kind of it's all sort of natural materials and a lot of it is uh wood and stone and you know wood painted red and using that kind of uh that palette that we've used for a lot of stuff. Um and and green as well for like the grass cuz we wanted it to feel verdant and and you know luscious. Um, but I have found with like more the more recent buildings I kind of want to mix up a little bit. So, we've added like a tailor building and I just didn't feel right in all these different colors and I tried all the different colors and then I kind of just tried it like a a pink and purple and it just just worked and it it gave it's quite a flamboyant kind of color scheme um which kind of fits with the idea of uh tailoring clothes and dressing up your followers and it just made it it kind of gave that building its own identity and there wasn't really much of a like mindset or reasoning behind it other than that I was just trying all these different colors and that worked. It looked it looked good and it just it just felt right. So, um I think a lot of it is just kind of what feels right and what um

experimenting I think. And don't be too afraid to break your own rules as well cuz um you know that's that's sometimes where the magic comes from if it's not working and you're following all these rules that you set. And then sometimes when the uh when you break your own rules, that's when the kind of real magic happens.