WAYWARD STRAND
Ghost Pattern’s devs talk about their unusual inspirations
“THE PEOPLE WILL CAPTIVATE YOU AS THEY’RE PACKED WITH PERSONALITY.”
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2022 / DEV GHOST PATTERN / PLAYERS
Casey Beaumaris visits the airship-hospital where her mother works in order to spend the summer working on a story for the school paper. With patients and staff working to their own schedules, it’s up to you to observe and decide how involved to get in various strands of this game’s story.
The alternate-’70s setting is gorgeous. “We’re really aiming to get as close to a traditional illustration as possible, while maintaining a fully 3D world,” says Aspen Forster, one of the devs from Ghost Pattern.
Goldie Bartlett, also from Ghost Pattern, recognises many people see the style and think of Wes
Anderson, but says he’s not a direct inspiration. They’ve drawn more from the likes of graphic novelist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), Tintin’s creator Hergé, painter John
Brack, and French art deco designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Even contemporaries like Void Bastards and Borderlands get a nod, as well as Scottish children’s gamebook artist Scoular Anderson.
FORM AND FUNCTION
The game’s art deco hospital was built in the 1920s, the story is set in the ’70s, and it all needs to work as a game space. “Finding architectural harmony between [those] three things was incredibly tough,” says Bartlett. Bartlett’s father was actually a real-world hospital architect. “His designs were never about the look or form of the hospital, but rather about the function of the space,” she says.
They worked with Melbournebased architect and game dev Su-Yiin Lai to get the feeling right, but Bartlett also had to “put [herself] in the shoes of the character who is building the hospital.” The result is imagining him unceremoniously getting rid of some original details for function, yet “with a groovy ’70s aesthetic like wood panelling and hanging plants thrown into the mix”.
“The other big part of the visual identity is the level of detail in our props and gorgeous animations,” says Bartlett. The people within the space will captivate you, as they’re packed with personality. Bartlett is a fan of Disney’s ’60s style (think 101 Dalmatians). “This era also employed an experimental method of animation called Xerography, which resulted in scratchy, organic, and rough linework. Delicious!” she says. “Things like that roughness, scratchiness, or as we call it, ‘wonkiness’, add a lot of character to Wayward Strand’s visual identity.”