At IndieDevDay 2023 in Barcelona, we browsed 100+ indie projects and selected 20 of them for Gamereactor interviews. Neon Blood is very obvious.
“It’s like a mix of things we like and like,” said technical director Alejandro Chipello. “We took some inspiration from Blade Runner from the environment, specifically Octopath Traveler developed by Square Enix, which had a nice mix of 2D pixel art characters and 3D environments, and we love RPGs.” .
“It was a little trial and error at first,” adds pixel artist Roi Turregui of the unique graphics, “because blending these 3D environments with 2D pixel art was a little difficult at first. The first iteration of Neon Blood was completely different, Using smpler characters and very low polygons, less character primitives and so on, and then we try to enjoy our journey and go in the style of primitive textures in a 3D environment (…I joined later, not That was added from the beginning, when I went in, I thought we needed to desaturate everything because we had some great shaders that allowed the lights to bounce around, so we didn’t need those colors, we needed more black, Something darker, with some kind of artistic animation”.
“There is one mode in the game that is very enjoyable, and that is the detective mode”, narrative director Daniel Pérez finally explains of the protagonistAxel McCoyThe story, “It helps you follow some clues and the game, I think the most interesting thing about the game is that you have to follow the clues, and as you progress through the game, you get some fights, new characters, new enemies, but the main thing you need to do is investigate. You start out like a regular vigilante, a regular detective, and then as the narrative flows, you end up becoming a war fighter aiming to destroy this cyberpunk and noir aesthetic A key part of the foundation of the revolution. We have two cities, one very luxurious and one very poor…”
Play the full interview to learn more about Neon Blood, PlayStation Talents program support, and how publisher Meridiem plans to release it on nearly all major platforms next year, including a physical version.
