Ben Chandler,

Artist and Animator, Wadjet Eye Games.

How does art support ambient storytelling in games?

Objects and environments are evidence of lives; a well-kept garden tells a different story to wilted plants. Art reflects characters, changes, interests and ambitions. I like to put the remnants of events and ideas into scenes.

What was the original brief for bringing Shardlight’s world to life?

Society exists after catastrophic war. It has left the environment, infrastructure and economy in ruins and people afflicted with a deadly plague.

Why did you draw the first shard?

I wanted a way to inject vivid colour into the otherwise dull, muted world, but I still wanted it to suit the setting. The plague theme is a focus and green seemed a natural colour to give the setting a sickly glow.

How do the shards work?

There was a product in antique glassmaking called ‘uranium glass,’ with uranium added to colour it. Under ultraviolet light this glows a vivid green. I decided, in our world, that the ozone layer has been ruined enough to let in much more ultraviolet light from the sun, which makes this glass glow brightly in daylight.

What kinds of storytelling moments do the shards lend the world?

It allowed me to replace the usual reliance on electric lights with something more primitive and reinforce the notion that these people scavenge for the things they need. The idea that even smashed glass has worth in this society speaks for the scarcity of resources.

How did shards evolve into an iconographic part of the game?

The first scene drawn for any game becomes a sort of “style guide” to which you refer for the rest of the game. The green offsets the browns and yellows so well that I kept referring to them, and eventually it seemed natural to make the cursor a shard of glass, and then the interface. Even in the scenes where I didn’t paint any shards, the interface itself adds colour and life to the screen.