The Stage for Subjectivity

The art direction of Anamnesis: The Eidolon Tapestries is not merely an aesthetic choice; it is a core component of the game’s design philosophy. It is engineered to serve the Core Pillars, particularly the Subjective Interface, and to empower both the player’s interpretation and the community’s creativity.

The approach is built on a single, guiding principle: the world is a stage, and the character’s perception is the lighting, the set design, and the special effects. The graphical fidelity is not in the objective representation of the world, but in the subjective experience of it.

Projecting Reality onto the Player

Many story generators, like RimWorld, use a simple graphical style as an “imagination-scaffolding,” a canvas onto which the player projects their own narrative details.

ATET inverts this relationship.

Intentional simplicity of the world is utilized to create a stable, readable baseline. The true visual complexity and artistic expression come from the Subjective Interface. The character’s internal state; their Faith, their Memories, their Needs; is projected outward onto this simple world, and in turn, onto the player.

A pristine corporate lobby is, objectively, a set of clean, low-poly models. But to an Incarnation with a Faith that [order_is_oppression], the Subjective Interface will render that lobby with a cold, sterile blue filter, the lines will appear unnaturally sharp, and a faint, oppressive hum will be added to the soundscape.

The player does not imagine the character’s feelings; they see and hear them.

The Medium: Stylized 3D from a Retro Perspective

The game will be rendered in a stylized, low-poly 3D. The primary camera perspective will be top-down, using an isometric projection; giving the player a clear view of their Incarnation and their immediate environment.

This choice is a deliberate solution to several key design challenges:

1. Aesthetic Accessibility & Community: While 2D art can be beautiful, stylistic preferences within 2D communities are often strong and highly compartmentalized. A clean, well-executed, and stylized 3D aesthetic provides a more neutral and universally accessible canvas, reducing the aesthetic friction that can sometimes prevent players from engaging with a game.

2. Empowering Modders (Confluence): A core goal of ATET is to foster a vibrant modding community. A low-poly 3D pipeline drastically lowers the barrier to entry for asset creation. It is far more feasible for amateur artists to create and integrate simple 3D models and textures than it is to produce high-quality, animated, and perspective-correct 2D sprites that match a pre-existing style. This empowers the community to meaningfully expand the game’s visual universe.

3. Mechanical Necessity: A true 3D world is essential for the robust implementation of the Subjective Interface. Dynamic visual distortions, perceptual filters, complex lighting, and true object occlusion are all far more tractable and powerful in a 3D rendering pipeline than they would be in a 2D one. This allows the full realization of a UI that is the character’s soul made manifest.

A Modular World

To support the vast diversity of species and the deep crafting systems, the asset design philosophy is one of modularity.

• Character Creation: Species are not monolithic models. An Incarnation’s body is an assembly of swappable parts: heads, torsos, limbs, and unique biological features. This visual modularity is a direct reflection of the game’s lore. It allows the hand-crafted machine nature of the Artisan to be visually real, and it provides the necessary framework for any future systems involving Eidolon-level genetic crafting or body modification.

• Object Design: This principle extends to all Objects. A crafted Weapon is not a single, pre-designed asset. Its final appearance is a composite, determined by the materials used in its Crafting. A sword forged with a hilt of [sacred_wood] and a blade of [recycled_plasteel] will look and feel fundamentally different from one made of [alien_chitin] and [living_crystal]. This ensures the player’s choices are reflected not just in stats, but in the tangible, visual identity of the world they inhabit.

Of course. Here is a formal description of the “Perceptual Rendering” system, drafted for an Art Direction or Technical Art section of a Game Design Document. It is written to be clear for all team members—artists, designers, and programmers alike.

The Perceptual Rendering System

High-Level Concept: “Rendering What the Character Perceives”

The visual presentation of our world is filtered through the subjective senses of the player character. We will move beyond traditional fog-of-war overlays to a more integrated and diegetic system we call Perceptual Rendering.

The core principle is that the world is rendered not as it objectively exists, but as the character is able to resolve it with their senses. Clarity is not uniform; it is a resource, a function of the character’s focus, distance, and mental state. Areas within the character’s direct attention are rendered with crisp, high fidelity. As elements move into the periphery of their senses, they lose definition, becoming visually indistinct and ambiguous by literally being rendered with less information.

This system turns the game’s viewport into a direct extension of the character’s consciousness, creating a powerful link between player and avatar.

Artistic Pillars

1. Focus Follows Form: The player’s eye will be naturally guided to the most important information; the area immediately around their character. The rendering itself creates a “soft spotlight” of clarity, reinforcing the character’s presence in the world.
2. Ambiguity as an Aesthetic: The unknown is not simply black or grey; it is unresolved. An object in the periphery is a collection of vague, blocky shapes. It might be a monster, it might be a rock. This ambiguity is a core driver of tension, curiosity, and tactical decision-making.
3. Clarity is Earned: Visual information is a reward. Improving a character’s perception, using a light source in the dark, or focusing on a specific area are active gameplay choices that are immediately rewarded with a higher-fidelity view of the world.

Technical Overview

The Perceptual Rendering system is built upon our deferred rendering pipeline (G-Buffer). Instead of a single, full-resolution lighting and shading pass, we will dynamically vary the shading quality across the screen based on a “Perception Mask.”

The screen will be divided into three conceptual zones, which blend seamlessly into one another:

• The Zone of Focus: The immediate vicinity of the character and the direction they are facing. This area is rendered at 100% native resolution with full detail.
• The Zone of Periphery: The area outside of immediate focus but still within the character’s senses. This zone is rendered at a significantly lower effective resolution. The lighting and shading information is calculated on down-sampled versions of the G-Buffer, resulting in a “pixelated” or “blocky” appearance that conveys a lack of detailed information.
• The Unseen: Areas completely outside the character’s sensory range. This will be handled by a more traditional, but stylistically consistent, method (e.g., a subtle desaturated noise or complete darkness, TBD).

The transition between these zones will be a smooth, feathered gradient, ensuring the effect is atmospheric rather than jarring.

Implementation & Gameplay Integration

This system is not merely a visual effect; it is a core gameplay mechanic that will be tied directly to character stats, status effects, and environmental conditions.

• Character Stats:

  • Perception: Directly increases the radius of the high-fidelity “Zone of Focus.” A high-Perception character can see more of the world clearly and at a greater distance.
  • Wisdom/Intelligence: Affects the quality of the “Zone of Periphery.” A wise character might have a less severe resolution drop-off, making their peripheral vision more reliable. An intelligent character might “resolve” the identity of distant objects faster.

• Environmental Factors:

  • Light: Light sources (torches, magical lights) are no longer just for illumination; they are “projectors of clarity.” They will paint high-resolution detail onto the world within their radius, overriding the darkness and allowing the character to perceive distant threats clearly.
  • Darkness & Weather: Magical darkness, heavy fog, or a blizzard will dramatically shrink the Zone of Focus and degrade the Zone of Periphery, making exploration tense and dangerous.

• Status Effects:

  • Fear/Panic: Induces tunnel vision, constricting the Zone of Focus into a tight vignette. The periphery becomes a chaotic, low-resolution mess.
  • Poisoned/Drunk: The Zone of Focus may waver, pulse, or become distorted. The low-resolution periphery may “creep in” toward the center of the screen.
  • Blindness: The entire screen is rendered at the lowest possible resolution, showing only crude, blocky shapes and outlines derived from the depth buffer.

• Enemy Interaction:

  • Stealth & Camouflage: Stealthy enemies will resist being “resolved” by the system. Even when in the Zone of Focus, they may appear as a indistinct shimmer or a collection of blocks until the character passes a perception check or gets extremely close.

Desired Player Experience

The goal of the Perceptual Rendering system is to create a deeply immersive and tactical experience. Players should feel:

• Connected: That what they see on screen is a true representation of their character’s sensory experience.
• Tense: The ambiguity of the periphery should create a constant, low-level tension. Every indistinct shape is a potential threat.
• Empowered: Making choices that increase their perception (leveling up a stat, lighting a torch) provides an immediate and satisfying visual and tactical reward.
• Strategic: “Where do I look?” and “Where do I move to see better?” become meaningful tactical questions.