Early sketch of Old Sierra Town by Dan Lee
Although it’s not accessible until the start of our second episode, the town of Old Sierra is actually one of the central locations in Rise of the Hidden Sun. Here’s a brief description of it, lifted from the game bible:
Old Sierra has seen better days. Most of the buildings—saloon, coral, jail, hotel, brothel, train depot, mortuary, etc—are either completely run down or getting there fast, and everyone who could afford to leave has already done so.
When Jake strolls into town, dusty and dirty from his adventures in episode one, everything about Old Sierra needs to suggest “ghost town.” At the same time, it also needs to look like a place that used to be a thriving boom town. So, providing a sense of scale is key. This place may be virtually empty, but it’s far from small.
That’s the discussion I had with Dan Lee, artist extraordinaire, who took the concept and ran with it in the early sketch above. Then we moved on to the equally important step of establishing a color palette to evoke the desired mood:
It just feels dusty, right?
This one scene sets the tone for all future work on the town area. It also provides the player with that important sense of scale I mentioned earlier. You immediately see several potential areas of interest—a hotel, the sheriff’s office, and a storefront with a wooden Indian on the porch—while at the same time being drawn first to the saloon.
Welcome to Spielburg
Oh, and there was one other thing we wanted this location to evoke in the minds of veteran adventure game players: a subtle, perhaps even subconscious, sense of nostalgia for one of the greats of the genre: Sierra On-line’s Quest for Glory I – So You Want to Be a Hero? by the husband and wife team of Lori and Corey Cole.
Hey, the town’s not called “Old Sierra” for nothing.
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