The room tiles in LEVEL 7 [OMEGA PROTOCOL] really help set the atmosphere for the game, so it was important that the art captured the mood we were trying to evoke.

When designing the tiles for LEVEL 7 [OMEGA PROTOCOL], I took the rough graph paper designs that lead developer Oz Schoonover and I had created, and I broke them down into a list of visual components we would need to build each tile. These visual components consisted of things like base floor textures, generators, computer consoles, rubble, hybrid tanks, and more. With this list in hand I began assembling reference materials and creating sketches, which I then passed along to artist Néstor Ossandón.

The sketch above shows my rough sketch of the hybrid tank at the angle I wanted it portrayed. Because I made the sketch over the concrete grid Néstor had previously illustrated, it was already scaled correctly for our use. We also sent him a batch of reference materials, including the tank he had previously illustrated for LEVEL 7 [ESCAPE].

Here we see the finished tank component that came back from Néstor after a round or two of dialing in the details. It should be noted the tank itself is on a transparent layer so we could place it into any environment we like.

The next stage was for me to put together a base file of the correct tile size, any required visual components, and a layer of art direction notes. I then passed this on to the art team to polish up the final visual details.

For the final hybrid tank tile, designer Laine Garrett put the finishing touches in place using various components from Néstor, along with light, shadow, texture, and components of her own creation. The result is a cohesive, team-created piece of artwork meant to draw players into the horrors of Subterra Bravo.

That’s just a little peek at how we made the tiles that bring LEVEL 7’s Subterra Bravo to life. In my next blog I’ll talk about how we did the “Faulty Intel” side of the tiles.