There are times when living out in the middle of nowhere in a flyover state like Oklahoma can feel like an obstacle to making games. I’m surrounded on all sides by trees, hills, cows. The nearest game store is 40 minutes away, and it’s nearly impossible to get decent internet at a fair price.

But for every obstacle this seclusion produces, it provides many more inspirations and opportunities.

When I was first building the world in The Ballad of Lone Phoenix, I knew that a lot of it would be shaped by the wide open world I live in. This week as I was working on the game trying to figure out how to add more to the world, I decided to take a walk and grab some pictures to use for references. Here are a couple of my favorite shots:

Here’s a picture rocks. Doing pixel-art rocks is hard for me, so being able to see them in front of me while drawing them helps a lot.

This picture gives a good idea of how rocks are scattered across a large open area. The top-down view makes heavily wooded areas almost impossible to navigate, so a lot of the game is in open areas.

Here’s a picture of the same open area. Since the game is top-down, I wanted to try and get a top-down view. Climbing this tree was the best I could do.

Here’s a dried up stream. I’d like to be able to add small details like this to make to world feel like it has been around for a while.

Here’s a shot of a dry creek bed. I think adding things like this will make the world feel imperfect. Not every creek has bubbling blue water and soft banks with green grass. I don’t want The Ballad of Lone Phoenix to be a picturesque view of nature in the midwest. I want it to be as raw and as dirty and imperfect as the real thing.

I had a couple other shots I was going to share, but this post is already getting really long.

As usual, I wish I could have gotten more work done this past week, but I’ve got a lot of great ideas for making the world in the Ballad of Lone Phoenix feel like a special place. And I’m excited to be able to see them in the game this next week (hopefully).

Thanks for reading,
God bless