Game developer Pat Naoum has launched a video game with backgrounds, creatures and scenery entirely painted by hand, which took seven years to complete.
Available on Nintendo Switch and Steam for Windows and Mac, The Master’s Pupil is a 12-level puzzle-adventure game that explores a painterly world through the eyes of French artist Claude Monet.
Naoum painted every background and element seen in the game with acrylic paints on paper before scanning them with a high-resolution film negative scanner.
“The paintings themselves are quite small, the green vines only about five millimetres high, so I used very small brushes along with a wet palette,” Naoum told Dezeen. “They were so small, they kept being fuzzy when I used a camera, but the scanner captured more detail than I could even see.”
The expressive brushstrokes and handmade quality of the game aims to set it apart from other digital games, which are typically rendered with digital tools.
“I think it creates a sense of realism to the game,” said Naoum. “It’s not at all ‘realistic graphics’, but it feels tangible and real, and quite different from a lot of digital styles.”
Players complete puzzles based on exploring space and colour mixing, experienced from the perspective of “the eyes and life of master artist Claude Monet”.
Recreations of Monet’s artworks were painted by Naoum and are uncovered as backdrops and scenes to explore throughout the game.
“Monet had such an interesting life, and he had cataracts later in life, so he was a perfect fit for the game’s setting and story,” said Naoum.
“I would love for people to experience Monet’s artwork in a different way,” he continued. “It’s one thing to look at his images on a screen or reprinted on an umbrella, but to run through them, to help build some of them and to look at them in a unique way is wonderful.”
The Master’s Pupil is the first game Naoum developed and took him seven years to complete. He began creating the game while working full-time before receiving a grant from Screen Australia, which allowed him to dedicate all his time to completing it.
According to Naoum, learning to code was the biggest obstacle when creating the game.
“The first three years were learning to code, coming up with the story and designs, and establishing a vertical slice,” he said.
“I’m such a visual person – paint on a page makes sense, but writing code to effect something abstract was very alien to me.”
Other video games that have been published on Dezeen include a retro-style game released by Louis Vuitton and a selection of video games that use architecture to heighten the player experience, which feature in the Videogame Atlas book.
The images are by Pat Naoum.
