Resonance: Rhythm in You - Town of Zephra - Pt 1

Hello again itch.io community, and thank you once again for joining me on this dive into Resonance: Rhythm in You.

Today I wanted to show off some of the first pieces of environment art we had commissioned (still by the talented Barret Frymire). For anyone who's played the alpha prototype (link down below), you would know that a lot of the experience is within a small unnamed town.
Well unnamed no longer! The town that you explore for a majority of the game (both the prototype and the final game in fact), is called Zephra, and is the location where our Hero originates from.

As you can see from the concept art, Zephra has a bit of a moody atmosphere to it. The town itself is the only hospitable den of civilization in the known area, a remnant from a more prosperous time. Though the town has survived its fair share of catastrophe over the centuries, it has been in slow decline under the leadership of the local monarchy, which presides from an adjacent castle/citadel. Large portions of Zephra's population have been slowly driven to poverty and crime, while the royalty seems to be fairly well-off. A tale as old as time really.

Resonance: Rhythm in You's environments were meant to invoke a blend of fantasy, medieval and gothic themes. The town itself has two distinct flavours to it as well. There's the more labyrinthine stone-work that winds through the town, a remnant of Zephra's old structures. Atop of these stone-cut buildings are the more recent additions to Zephra's architectural projects, wooden buildings that have been built over the remains of the ancient city. You can see some of this in the concepts, however we want to do another piece in the future which captures more of the old stone-work parts of the town as well.

The third piece of concept you see is actually one we ended up not completing, opting to go in the direction of the first piece. However, it still captures the inner-town quite well so I thought I would share it.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that Resonance: Rhythm in You is actually meant to have 3D environments! Yes, that's right, unlike the completely 2D environments you see in the alpha prototype, our goal was to do something fun and unique, blending our 2D pixel-art characters within a 3D environment. You'll still only walk on a 2D plane however, so in many ways we're similar to a 2.5D metroidvania you might expect these days, just with some flatter characters (we'll dive more into this in the future). We're currently starting to work on these environments, based on the concept art, and look forward to sharing some of that soon!

As always, if you'd like to keep in the Resonance Games loop, please follow us on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/resonancegamescommunity
or follow me on Twitter @Trinity_Xtreme

I'd love to hear what you think about the concept pieces and the town of Zephra itself. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll be happy to answer!

...can you hear the music?

Kurin Laing
Founder of Resonance Games