CLIENT

Otherside, Yuga Labs

PROJECT TYPE

Creative/Art Direction
Gaming
World Building
IP development

Otherside is Yuga Labs' big platform play, its promise is to become the living of web3 where all the NFT projects can participate, build, and socialize. Defining the art direction for the game is a challenging project, as it features multiple (29) worlds with completely unique aesthetic and story. Functionality, it needs to be optimized to scale for mass concurrency. As the creative director for Otherside, I led a team of concept artists and narrative writer to form the universe, its characters, and develop in-engine art style.

YUGA LABS CREATIVE TEAM

Long Vu - Creative Directors
Lea Dickert & Ingram Schell - Art Directors
Calder Moore, George Brad Catalin, Nevena Nikolcheva, Tyler Edlin - Concept Artists
Jessie Bustin - Executive Creative Director

Otherside (OS) is a metaverse that is a mix of virtual social space and gaming experience, built in Unreal. It started out as a collection of NFT called Otherdeed for Otherside from Yuga. Within this collection, there are 29 different biomes — each with its own distinctive aesthetic. Holders of these NFT tokens get access to all Otherside events, and will be granted a private virtual space per deed. They can hold their own events, play, or build content of their choice on these deeds. OS public events, called Trips, are mass concurrency events where thousands of players can appear together in the same virtual space. Given all these considerations, there were a lot of opportunities but also plenty of challenges in developing the art direction for OS.

OPPORTUNITY SPACE

Abstract genre that is a mix of scifi and dark fantasy leaves a lot of freedom for world building
Psychedelic undertone is an unique twist that sets itself apart from other metaverse

CHALLENGES

Sheer number of variation in biome vs production timeline
Level of details need to be optimized for such large player scale while retaining quality.
The art style needs to compliment wide range of IPs

Given the scale of the project, I only feature a sample size of the concepts and designs that went into developing the world and its art style.

There are so many questions and curiosity that arise when viewers look at the Otherdeed NFT, and its strange otherworldly subjects are its strength. Therefore, we leaned into soft world building approach, developing visually engaging content but not forcing ourselves to answer every logic and choices in this world. We wanted the viewers to be challenged and intrigued...their imagination should fill in the gaps as opposed to answers being given to them.

Through initial studies and discussions, we identified 3 pillars that best represent the world — Otherworldly, Surreal, and Grand. All concepts and designs are measured against these 3 qualities. Players should feel like they are being immersed in a vast alien-like world.

Koda ruins and architecture

Koda are celestial beings who saw the birth of Otherside. They had a thriving society powered by Blue magic, a mysterious liquid that they can wield due to their innate connection to the land. The ruins found throughout Otherside give us some hints to what their technology and architecture looked like. Due to a wide range of game genres that Otherside play into, the architecture informs overall shape language, materials, and functions of game props.

Koda runes and language

Koda built a civilization, so naturally they needed some kind of glyph system to inscribe their language. We developed a Koda font that match to alphabet characters. This was necessary to expand on their technology and visual language, but it is a fantastic storytelling device for marketing and brand design. You could see these runes throughout our story beats.

Realizing the Vision

Realizing the vision

We chose Bone deed to be the first biome to brought to life in Unreal, since we kept coming back to the fact that it hit all the unique qualities of Otherside. The biome is meant to be a bone yard which made it a strong proof of concept on how Otherside can set itself apart by introducing its unique twists on a common aesthetic. We played with scale and imagined the environment to be a forgotten city made out of bones, where ribcages and spinal taps resemble highways and bridges.

In engine, we wanted a more stylized look where textures and shapes are simplified but exaggerated to achieve a strange otherworldly feel while making it less heavy on draw calls.