Like the pair's work on Streets of Rage 4 before it, Dotemu and Guard Crush Games' latest title, Absolum, is a game whose art direction and visuals are working overtime to serve as one of its definitive features. Similarly, Dotemu and Guard Crush have once again teamed up with a studio that has extensive experience creating hand-drawn visuals with fluid animations, only instead of it being a developer like Streets of Rage 4's Lizardcube, it's an animation studio helping with Absolum: Supamonks. But while Supamonks has primarily focused on animation for other mediums, the studio is by no means a stranger to game development.
The Best War Games recently attended an event hosted by game publisher Dotemu, where the publisher unveiled Absolum for the first time and then let us go hands-on with the preview build. Afterward, we had the chance to sit down with key members of Asbolum's development team, including art director Maxime Mary from Supamonks. Absolum's eye-catching hand-drawn visuals were one of the demo's many highlights, and Mary graciously provided some insight into the artists who inspired the game's "comic book come to life" look.
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Absolum Has Some Clear Influences In Its Art Direction and Visuals
Getting the chance to boot up Absolum's playable demo after the reveal and presentation from Dotemu hammered home how integral the title's visuals and animation were to its overall atmosphere and high fantasy aesthetic, and it also immediately brought to mind several noteworthy comics and animated television shows that seemed to have a clear influence on the game. In addition to the more readily apparent similarities to the art style of Hellboy's Mike Mignola or Head Lopper's Andrew MacLean, there were also some noticeable nods to Pendelton Ward's Adventure Time. Bringing these impressions to art director Maxime Mary only confirmed their influence on Absolum:
The inspirations come from Mike Mignola or Andrew MacLean (the latter is very high on the list of references), but also from Franco-Belgian comics, of which I'm a big fan. Authors like Franquin (Spirou) or Uderzo (Asterix), who cradled my childhood, but also Christophe Blain (Gus) or the Kerascoets (Beauty). I wanted to get away from the despair and realism that can be found in the artistic directions taken from Mike Mignola (Darkest Dungeon, Sworn, etc.) And take a more semi-realistic approach, also inspired by the world of animation. Last but not least, some monsters feature nods to the work of Akira Toriyama.
While Mike Mignola's work has an unmistakable influence on Absolum, Mary was quick to point out that Absolum's visuals are more colorful and less dependent on the heavy shadows and gothic motif that much of Mignola's previous work carries, which helps to give the game its own visual identity despite it having some clear throughlines to the work of iconic comic artists. Alongside the game's noticeably fluid animations, Absolum gives off the impression of playing a fantasy cartoon that only existed in the minds of its creators.
Absolum is currently in development and will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.
Absolum
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Roguelite, Beat 'Em Up
