Games
We sat down with Italian developers Naps Team to talk about their Studio Ghibli and Zelda-inspired adventure, Baldo.
"Take the green of foliage, for example. In nature, the colour of real foliage is not especially vivid. If you use natural hues, your work will look dull. The green of the foliage isn't vibrant. To bring out the hues, you can add a bit of vivid colour to one side. Use different colour accents in areas of light and shade. The shade of green you use may be the same in one location, but it will be hard to say what the overall colour is, but it should have a feeling of rich green."
Those are the words of Kazuo Oga, the artist behind the fantastic background scenery in movies like My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke, describing how he captures vibrant forest colors while painting a scene he'd passed on the side of the road. The variety of hues used to draw separation between shadow and light, while still creating a central feel for an object on screen, is a huge reason why Studio Ghibli feels intense and warm.
Those words, along with the rest of the teachings of Oga, are one of the main influences behind Baldo, a gorgeous new game that tries to capture the same look and feel of My Neighbor Totoro. "It took a lot of research, different references and multiple attempts to try and get the same kind of result," says Naps Team artist Fabio Capone, one of the minds behind Baldo. "Books from the painter Kazuo Oga, the person behind Ghibli background art, where he explains how he works helped a lot."
Developed by Italian studio Naps Team, who've created and helped design dozens of games for various platforms, Baldo is a passion project that's finally going to see the light of day, after the original project got shelved.
"Baldo means brave or bold in Italian and it's quite different from other RPGs you can find nowadays," Capone says. "I've always loved Japanese anime and that style since I was a kid. I always dreamed about a game that could bring people into that kind of magical world. No one's done that yet, so I decided to do it myself."
Baldo is an action adventure Zelda-like game, with puzzles, exploration and combat all set in a beautifully crafted hand-drawn open world. It's coming to Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC at an unannounced time, although Capone promises it'll be sooner than we think.
"It isn't focused on combat mainly, although that's a big part of it, but it will share a lot of elements from the Zelda series," Capone says. "At its core Baldo is a puzzle and dungeon game, although there are plenty of other secrets inside."
It's been a project that's been in the work for more than 15 years, gone through several iterations, finally arriving at what the project looks like today. "The idea started a long time ago, as a game called The Dark Knight," Capone explains. "That project ended once the GameBoy Advance era came to an end. It was a shame. A few years ago, once technology that allowed better cartoon shading came around, we thought it was a good time to get our hands on the project once again."
Crafting a Miyazaki-like beauty
While the world, gameplay and story of Baldo are fascinating, the real draw for the game is the Studio Ghibli-style colours, backgrounds and characters. Every inch of the world feels vibrant and surreal, something that Hayao Miyazaki and the rest of the animation team at Studio Ghibli have become famous for.
"I love Studio Ghibli and Ponoc's style, so this art direction was an easy choice for me. I knew I had to make something like that, it's something I always wanted to do," Capone says. "I'll admit that it was quite hard to reproduce that feel and it took me a while to get the right mood. I had to go through so many test runs due to how every texture is hand drawn. It was an undertaking."
Capone mentions Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky and Mary and the Witch's Flower as three of his favorite films that heavily inspired Baldo's visual style. Some influences from Capone and fellow studio founder Domenico Barba's home country, Italy, also made it into the game. Players may recognise some familiar traditional Italian dishes in the game, alongside its side quests and NPCs.
The world itself is also inspired by Miyazaki, with decrepit ruins, mystical libraries and quaint forest towns filling the screen, each with their own distinctive colours and picturesque backgrounds. We haven't been able to play Baldo yet, but it may be worth it for the visuals alone.
While Capone does say that Baldo was close to release, he was still tight lipped about the story and different details within the game. We do know that Baldo, the story's hero who the game is named after, must save the world from certain doom.
"Baldo is guy who'll be the key to saving his world, but also the guy who caused the destruction," Capone says. "I can't say much more at the moment, but while the story is a main part of the game – the game will drive the story and not the other way around."
