Documentation, lore, audio direction, visual identity. Locked before code touched it. Every system built since references this foundation.
Most indie projects discover their world while they build it. AIRLOCK locked the world first. The Sonic War. The collapse of the UGA. The four locked proper nouns: Ashgate, the Airlock, the Settlers, the Altered. The painted concept-art aesthetic. 'Calm Before The Storm' written and scored. Every system that came after had a fixed star to navigate by.
Ashgate. The Altered (Feral, Familiars, Stalkers, Legion). The Settlers, 14 distinct classes. The post-war UGA. The Sonic War 300 years ago. The Legion reveal arc. Multi-airlock metro network.
Confluence dossier of every faction, every settler class, every place name, every story beat. Memory locked into a single source of truth before a single line of gameplay code went in.
TLOU + Days Gone reference lock. Hans Zimmer for the orchestral spine. 'Calm Before The Storm' written and scored. Diegetic SFX rules. Submix routing. Sonic identity locked before any major audio shipped.
Reference docs: TLOU + TLOU Part II + Days Gone for SFX. Hans Zimmer's emotional register for score. 'Calm Before The Storm' written, scored, performed, the spine the trailer will eventually be cut to.
After 20+ HUD variations across 10 style directions, the painted concept art aesthetic was locked. Cormorant Garamond. Permanent Marker labels. Brushstroke buttons. Ink-wash backings. Cream on near-black.
Twenty-plus HUD variations across ten distinct directions, side-by-side mockups, ruthless elimination. The painted concept-art aesthetic survived. Cream sumi-ink on near-black. Hand-made energy. Nothing else came close.
91 painted monochrome icons delivered. Survival bars, status effects, weapons, consumables, loot, HUD chrome, banners, structural frames, screen overlays, map pins, Settler activities, skill tree parents.
Ninety-one painted icons in a single sprite sheet. Cream monochrome masters. CSS-tinted at runtime. Survival bars, weapons, status effects, map pins, the whole UI vocabulary in one consistent painted hand.