Allied

Allied

Allied is a decopunk, military-inspired, exploration rpg inspired by games like Valiant Hearts and Papers, Please, featuring immersive exploration and a narrative about propaganda and a cold war. 

Story synopsis

In Allied, the protagonist finds herself in a world being held in the grips of a cold war between two countries, the Art Deco/Amsterdam School inspired Great Highland Empire and the Hungarian Art Nouveau/Jugendstil inspired Monarchy of Marezza. Both countries are stuck in a perpetual cycle of trying to 1-up each other with increasingly bizarre war machines and producing immeasurable amounts of propaganda. The cold war has been going on for so long, none of the parties involved really remember what set it off. The protagonist, unaffiliated with either country, gets sucked into a situation where both countries try to persuade her to join their side.

Can the player get to the root of the conflict and how it was able to escalate to this scale? Is there a peaceful solution possible, or do you pick sides?

The project

The main goal of my Vrij III Project was to create a worldbuilding style guide. The idea for the world of Allied has been brewing in my head for quite a long time and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to develop it a bit more and to really indulge on my love for art (in the broadest sense of the word) history, hence the late Victorian - 1940s western style influences. 

For the uninitiated; a worldbuilding style guide is a document where you explain the everything that makes up an imaginary world, for example the history, the geography, major events etc. The style guide is very literal, a guide to a specific art style and design elements. So I explained how to produce the style of drawing I wanted to see in a hypothetical game so other artists can reproduce it. I also included some mockups of what I wanted the gameplay to look like.

I researched a LOT for this project. Researching major events in the history of Europe like the French and Hungarian revolutions & the establishing of Austria-Hungary was important to create realistic origin stories for the two countries and how they formed such a rivalry. Researching art and design history helped me create distinct style differences between the two countries. 

In addition to the worldbuilding style guide I created 2 2D scenes in unity; 1 set in New Roma, Highland's capital city; 1 set in Zolin, Marezza's capital city. This however wasn't my main focus with the project and I don't wanna show them because I think they look ugly :)

ARTSTATION