Stylized graphics - enemies, items and surroundings expressed using simple shapes, and exaggerated animations and contrasting lighting.

Nymph, hiding among ferns. 3D graphics using flat surfaces and contrast to create readable yet moody setting.

Main visual elements of environment:

Foliage

Foliage is important from a gameplay standpoint - player is hiding in it. We need a way to make it readable and not to detailed.

Water

Water is a flat surface, viewed from the top in our game. It's important to gameplay, as we can use it to hide or kill enemies by draging/throwing them in. It's also thematically connected to water/forest nymphs.

Maybe it would be cool to render water as the reflection of the sky (night sky for example, with clouds bathed in the moonlight).

Then reflective water can have ripples procedurally drown on it, which would make for a cool effect.

Ghost in the Shell, 1995

Fishermen Village

Full of buildings we can explore, with breakable walls.

Inspirations and examples from other games:

Top down action game references:

Top down games with juicy action and stylized graphics, that ooze style:

Hotline Miami

Fast paced gameplay and heavy stylized graphics. Loads of particles.

Altough the game is famous for it's quick, action packed, violent gameplay, it's soft stealth mechanics are equally as important, to the point that the game is sometimes called "logic puzzle" disguised as mindless rampage. Player usually goes down with one hit, so they need to clear levels as quickly and as quiet as possible.

Ape Out

Trailer depicting heavy stylisation using simple shapes, and dynamic gameplay, along with basic mechanics like grabbing and throwing enemies.

3D elements and ocasional use of shadow make the action stand out even more, adding more diagonal lines and contrast to visuals.

DarkWood

More moody, horror like setting.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/274520/Darkwood/

Games/other media with similar mood:

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Gameplay

Very early concept arts/key arts for SotTR. Drawings are crude and simple, but the main idea of contrasting lighting and hiding in shadows is clear.

Final concept art of the game. Main heroine, dirty and lethal, hides among the vegetation and contrast lighting.

Altough graphics are detailed, the use of fog and light makes for clear silhouettes and loads of contrast.

Silhouette of main heroine is assymetric, making her look like a creature from horror movies.

Using mud and hiding in vegetation are core mechanics. Girl hides in dark forest from armed enemies.

The Last of Us Part II

Gameplay

Key art - small girl hides in a forest from angry peasants with torches.

Early concept art - girl just wants to chill out by the water, but the soldiers are coming in trough the fog.

Hiding in the bushes. Altough the graphics are very detailed, simple forms and silhouettes are clear and readable. Fog is used to simplify different planes.

Player crawling trough mud, hiding from oppresors. Again - detailed graphics, but clear shapes.

Batman: The Animated Series

Moody images with striking light/shadow contrasts and simplified, synthetic shaping.

Backgrounds were famously drawn on black paper, giving the vibe of coming out of the shadows. Great use of silhouettes, gradients, patterns and negative space - somewhat similar to Ape Out.

Similar to our game, main character was often portrayed as an epherall, demonic creature, lurking from the shadows.

Corporate needs you to find the difference between theese two pictures

Flow (2024 animation)

Altought the environments seem pretty detailed, they use simplified geometry and shading for foliage, creating sythetic yet organic look of the forest.

Jibaro (2022 short)

Short animation, part of Netflix' Love Death Robots series. Some water nymphs is killing off conquistadors in the jungle. Link to youtube.

Features heavily stylized, painted like models and textures, contrasted with hyperrealistic/videorealistic elements, like mo-captured character animations, camera being out of focus or using camera flash to light scenes.

In some static shots, the vegetation is only a rough sketch.

Water nymph is all dressed in gold and jewelery, using both greed and sexuality to lure soldiers into water.

Do we want to have some mechanics with luring/tempting enemies? Other than "throw a bottle to distract them".

Disney Tarzan and Pocahontas

They both know the forest and are portrayed stalking people from the culture that is alien to them.

While they both have classic, humanoid shape, they're often (especially Tarzan) portrayed moving in a strange, organic way. Foliage-shaped patterns of shadows are often casted on their bodies and faces.

Both movies have slightly different way of portraying wilderness - with tarzan's more chaotic, organic vines and branches and multilayered parallaxes , with camera going all over the place, and Pocahontas' more stoic, ballanced compositions, full of easily identifiable diagonal, vertical and horizontal lines, gradients and camera movements.

Star Wars: Clone Wars (scene in the forest)

Deep in the jungle, female force user is quietly dismantling a regiment of troops. She's using force, not magickal hair, but other than that the vibe is pretty similar - soldiers get silently pulled into deep bushes or water, or thrown against the trees. Video here.