Concept Art

Influences

The concept art for this game was inspired by the work of two artists: Priamo della Quercia (1400 circa - 1467) and Gustave Doré (1832 - 1883).

Priamo della Quercia

Brother of the great Sienese sculptor, Jacopo della Quercia, Priamo was a retardataire artist of modest abilities. Priamo della Quercia executed the illuminations for the Inferno and Purgatorio. Priamo's work reflects the more realistic style of late fifteenth-century Florentine painting, an influence which is particularly noticeable in his use of contours and outlines in the depiction of nudes.

Priamo della Quercia - Punishment of Satan

Gustave Doré

Gustave Doré, the second of the three children of Pierre Louis Christophe Doré, an engineer, and his wife, Alexandrine Marie Anne Pluchart, was born in Strasbourg on 6th January 1832. His biographer, David Kerr, has pointed out: "A child prodigy, Doré received little formal artistic training, but his talents as a draughtsman were already apparent during his school years."

Dore's first lithographic album was published by in Paris in 1847.

Gustave Doré's illustrations and Dante's Divine Comedy have become so intimately connected that even today, nearly 150 years after their initial publication, the artist's rendering of the poet's text still determines our vision of the Commedia. Planned by Doré as early as 1855, the Dante illustrations were the first in a series he referred to as the "chefs-d'oeuvre de la littérature."

Gustave Doré - "Gloomy wood" and "Tomb's foot"

Sketches

These are early sketches towards game implementation.

Game Map

This drawing maps the nine levels of the game that correspond to the nine circles of Hell.

Characters

Hermes is the player's character. He is an adventurer, a voyager and a warrior. Hermes was inspired in the homonimous greek god, son of Zeus and Pleiade. He was quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine. We was also emissary and messenger of the gods and conductor of souls into the afterlife. He protected the travelers.

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years.

The Hell Wasp is a free flying creature. If the player touches it, damage is caused to him. If the Hell Wasp is killed by the player, the Pit Worms can eat it.

The Pit Worm is a crawling creature. If the player touches it, damage is caused to him. To increase its size, the Pit Worms eat dead Hell Wasps. As the Pit Worm gets bigger more damage can be inflicted to the player.

Objects

THe Hermes' Staff is a transforming object. In the first level gets the shape of an axe.