Ignis Lake - Concept Art

My current university brief (called 'Game On') Involves us working on various concept pieces for a game we would like to create. I decided I would like to work in a group for this project so I could focus on creating certain assets. My main task will be to create character models and animation. However I decided to try my hand at some concept stills after doing a quick sketch of an enemy from the game. The game we are working on is called 'Ignis Lake'. The game is a survival horror were the protagonist is chased by the horrific memory of his families burnt corpses. Below is a concept still for the protagonist's wife after she has died. I'm really happy with the quality of the final image. However I think the character may look too much like a zombie rather than just a burnt body; so some more work is required.

 

We have taken a lot of inspiration from other survival horror games. We wanted to have a similar atmosphere to the town 'Silent Hill' whilst having the defenseless character like in the game 'Amnesia: the dark descent'. I definitely want a lot of panic scares as well similar to the intro scenes in 'Dead space'; were the player must run away from their enemy avoiding any environmental obstacles at the same time.

     'Concept art from Silent Hill'

'screenshot from Amnesia'

Below is the first playable scene in dead space 2. It's very rare for a game to jump straight into the action like this. It's particularly significant as well because the player is completely defenseless and can even die. I like this approach to a level forcing the player to think fast in a panic induced state, it makes for great immersive horror. However it would be important not to have scenes like this all the time. The player needs to breath at some point, so the inclusion of simple puzzle elements could act as small checkpoints that so slow down traversal.