Scorn: The Art of the Game

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Due to Scorn’s ambitious scope, the team had to cut down some of its more unique ideas and levels. The first cut location is The Blasted Labyrinth, which was supposed to be a transitional area between The Crater and The Tower (another cut location). Scorn’s artbook reveals that Ebb Software originally had bigger plans for the Homunculi. These synthetic experiments were highly-intelligent engineers who could build cyborgs from organic scrap and random junk. Because of their diminutive and distorted structure, they needed these machines to move and function. An in-depth look into Scorn’s unique aesthetic. This artbook includes a curated collection of in-game art with never-before-seen imagery and concept designs. Scorn: The Art of the Game by Titan Books – eBook Details

As for other influences it's quite a big list. If we are talking movies it's directors like Cronenberg, Argento, Lynch, Carpenter and Jodorowsky just to name a few. Writers of different genres from Horror and SF to philosophy like Lovecraft, Barker, Thomas Ligotti, J.G. Ballard, Stanislaw Lem, Kafka, Albert Camus, Heidegger and so on. Games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil or Metroid Prime. Sometimes you have to try out crazy and even ridiculous ideas to realize what works and what doesn't (image below). An ever-increasing malice. A mind-numbing terror. The seeds of horror are sown in this collection of Junji Ito’s earliest works.Pip: I assume you used medical imagery for some of the reference points - can you tell me a bit more about that? Scorn's influences are based on ideas and concepts I wanted to explore. When it comes to visual influences just looking at any comment section for Scorn you will notice two names are constantly mentioned: H.R. Giger (who appears to be a household name now) and the much less well known polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski. They are certainly the two main visual influences but their work was not chosen because it looks cool but because different aspects of their work relate to various themes and ideas in Scorn. We also tried to create our own style. Peklar: The hardest part is not creating noise or clutter. If something is oversaturated with detail it becomes noise, or if it has none it becomes flat. It's really strange how much a simple line or form can mutate one concept into another and go stylistically in the wrong direction creating a standard SF or gothic aesthetic. Balance is everything.

Pip: How has the game changed over time? Have you had to accommodate that with the artwork in any particular ways?While Beksiński is a lesser-known Polish painter, many people know Giger through the film Alien, whose titular monster was of Giger’s design. Some have suggested Scorn cribs directly from the serpentine alien’s design and Giger’s idea of pursuing beauty through horror, but Peklar says he has his own story to tell. The reloading of the gun and some other features had to be changed because it didn't work in the game. Sometimes you come up with better ideas when things don't work as intended. The Scorn - The Art of the Game e-book is published by Titan Books, a division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.