Hyakki Yako II: Purgatory Purge is a first-person action game set in a PS1-inspired purgatory. As the art director, I was responsible for establishing a cohesive artstyle and visual aesthetic for the game. In this blog post, I'm going to explain the creative process behind Hyakki Yako II's visual style, and the various challenges and complications I faced in the process.
Lessons Learned from Hyakki Yako: OH&S
In 2021, I collaborated with Liam Castles on Hyakki Yako: OH&S, a first-person horror game inspired by the gameplay of Slender and the aesthetics of Japanese horror and liminal spaces. It was a very short and simple game, made in just under 12 weeks for a university assignment, but we were both very passionate about the project, and as soon as we finished it we knew we wanted to do more with the setting and aesthetic. The year after, we decided to make our final game project a sequel to OH&S, but we wanted to make something more complicated, adventurous, and exploration-focused.
As soon as I was chosen as the art director I began developing a visual style, and Liam and I quickly realised that we needed something more cohesive than the somewhat confused graphical style of OH&S. The first decision we made was to strip back the graphical fidelity of OH&S and go for an early Playstation inspired aesthetic. This would allow us to create a greater amount of assets and prioritize art direction over realism, while still having a recognizable style.
We looked to games such as Bloodborne PSX and Ultrakill for inspiration, since we wanted to capture the aesthetic of the early 2000s while still keeping modern gameplay expectations and conveniences. I also looked to anime such as Mononoke and Spirited Away when designing the characters, as I enjoy their depictions of mythological creatures recontextualized in a modern lens.
For the world design, I wanted to depict purgatory as different to the underworld, as instead of representing punishment and oppression, it represents stagnation and infinity. Purgatory as a concept exists across multiple religions, but the one in our game does not represent any one interpretation of Purgatory. Rather, it is meant to be a dumping ground for the gods, where everyone and everything forgotten by Heaven and Hell is discarded. Because of this, I wanted to make purgatory feel lonely, eerie, and surreal.
Architectural Influences
While the majority of Purgatory Purge’s inspiration is Japanese folklore, I wanted there to be a more culturally diverse range of influences in the world design, as our Purgatory does not belong to any one culture or religion. The architecture in the Waterfall Hotel region was primarily based on Kowloon Walled City, a now-destroyed enclave in Hong Kong, which was famous for its unchecked urban sprawl (Crawford, 2020). I chose Kowloon Walled City because the unpredictable nature of its architecture felt suitable for Purgatory’s surreal nature and disorienting gravity, and I’m very happy with the final result. I was also inspired by the environments in Ghost in the Shell, which in turn lead me back to Hong Kong again.
Meanwhile the Divinity Contrivance was far simpler to design, being an oversized oil rig. It was partially inspired by the Transocean Winner, an oil rig that washed ashore in Scotland in 2016 (Thorbecke, 2016). I found the image of the massive structure beached upon the rocks to be eerily captivating, like a stranded animal made of steel, so I used the Transocean Winner as a basis for the Divinity Contrivance’s design. I also was inspired by the environment design of the manga Dorohedoro, and its endless industrial chaos. As the levels are each themed after two of the game’s elemental powers, I felt that an oil rig accurately embodied both fire and metal, and a discarded oil rig was also thematically consistent with the depiction of Purgatory as a place of stagnation and forgotten things.
Mythological Influences
In keeping with the style of OH&S, Purgatory Purge is heavily influenced by Shintoism, Taoism, and Buddhism. As someone who is not of East Asian descent, I made sure to extensively research these beliefs to ensure they were portrayed respectfully and without stereotyping. The magic of Purgatory Purge is based on modern pop culture interpretations of Onmyoji, exorcists and sorcerors of Japan’s Heian Period (794-1185 AD) (Hayashi & Hayek, 2013) and as such involves usage of paper talismans and hand symbols. The elemental hand symbols themselves are based on the Kuji-in, a system of mudras and mantras used by Onmyoji and Taoist priests.
The Highest Order, the organization the protagonist works for, is lead by a fictionalized version of Abe no Seimei, a famous historical Onmyoji who appears in numerous works of fiction in modern Japanese pop culture, and the Order itself is inspired by the ancient Bureau of Onmyo, which handled exorcism, divination, and astrology in Heian Japan. However, the Highest Order also has the aesthetic of a modern government organization, as both a way of contextualizing it in a modern setting, and also as a reference to the Onmyoji’s government role as civil servants in ancient times.
Purgatory Purge’s Ritual Blade is based on the shape of a Vajra sword, a Buddhist ritual weapon based on the legendary Vajra weapon, which represents the indestructibility of a diamond and the unstoppable force of a thunderbolt (Rysdyk, 2019). It has a Ghanta ritual bell incorporated into the pommel, which together with the Vajra represents wisdom and compassion. I wanted to have Renkai use a Buddhist weapon instead of a Shinto or Taoist one because Buddhism’s area of influence is far greater, stretching across most of Asia, and therefore a Buddhist ritual weapon would hold meaning to a greater variety of demons and evil spirits. I also personally thought that Japanese swords are somewhat overused in pop culture and that a weapon such as a Vajra sword would be more striking and unique.
Conclusion
By drawing on a variety of influences, I believe I was able to create a cohesive visual style for Purgatory Purge that I feel evokes the themes and emotions the game is intended to convey. Thank you for reading!
References:
Crawford, J. (2020, January 6). The Strange Saga of Kowloon Walled City. Atlas Obscura; Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/kowloon-walled-city
Thorbecke, C. (2016, August 9). Massive Oil Rig Washes Ashore in Remote Scotland. ABC News; ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/International/massive-oil-rig-washes-ashore-remote-scotland/story?id=41246971
Hayashi, M. (2013). Onmyōdō in Japanese History [Review of Onmyōdō in Japanese History]. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 40(1), 1–18. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/4237
Rysdyk, E. C., & Bhola Nath Banstola. (2019). The Nepalese shamanic path : practices for negotiating the spirit world. Destiny Books.
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