Talking about Sorry We’re Closed distinctive art

Sorry We’re Closed is a nostalgic, single-player survival horror game where you follow the final days of Michelle who tries to break a curse placed on her by a powerful demon. Enjoy atmospheric environments driven by classic, fixed camera angles and the thrill of arcade-style, first person combat.

You can check out the demo of Sorry We’re Closed on Steam!

I talked to C.Bedford who is a developer at à la mode games about the art in Sorry We’re Closed.

Where did you get your inspiration for the art design in Sorry We’re Closed?

Though I have my general inspirations that affect my art overall, most of my direct inspiration comes from music. I am very much one of those artists that make an over dramatic trailer to every track I listen to lol. This included VHS Head, Mid-Air!, Unloved, Ital Tek, FKA Twigs, Moses Sumney, and Phono Ghosts to name a very very few.

With Sorry We’re Closed I’m trying to capture a wide variety of feelings, themes and motifs, but filter it through a very specific setting. If I were to distill what that was, I’m trying to capture the feeling we get when we pour our hearts out to our friends or lovers in the most inconvenient places — at a loud party, in the middle of the night at a corner store, while playing video games together. So I am trying to very directly translate that into the visuals of the game.

We decided on it being a horror game before we settled on any themes but I then realized actually it’s quite scary choosing to be real with those closest to you. Transformative moments in life can really shake things up or fuck things over. So all the direction, including the art, points towards the anxiety you get when you’re working through something in your friendships or relationships, but also trying to not look bad while doing it. You’ve worn the best looking shoes you own, they’re absolutely painful to walk in, and you’ve got some really steep stairs to walk down. You’ll trip, but at least you’ll look good doing it!

It’s why there is a clash between this grimey world, and very vibrant characters.

Do you have some early sketches or art progression of characters, environments, etc. that you would like to show off?

Of course!

Here’s one of the first enemy you see in the Underground Station in the demo:

I love this little guy. It’s our most standard enemy. We call them “baby rats”. I think it’s even listed as that in the engine haha.

There’s also the Antagonist. They are a character I created before this project was even a thought in our minds, but they were exactly what we needed for the game.

Here’s a sketch of the Chimera, which I made very early on in the process of trying to understand what Sorry We’re Closed even was and build the foundations of what the game was meant to be.

The Chimera was also one of my pre-existing characters. A lot of my ideas and designs I feel can easily go in and out of any world I decide to make, and I believe in always using your best ideas, and never saving them exclusively for something else. I don’t have time for that!

So I finished this to be a painting -

And his eventual in game model came out to look like so:

Since I both create the concepts and have to model, rig and animate them, I find I don’t have to do character sheets as you typically see them in game production. I can go a lot off of what just feels right.

Can you walk us through the creative process of how you approach designing one character in Sorry We’re Closed?

Sometimes it starts off with either looking in my wardrobe, or remembering an outfit I’d always wanted myself haha. It’s a fluid process though. As I’ve always been into fashion, and street fashion especially, I have this idea that what people wear doesn’t define them but is part of something they are trying to express or a result of how their life is. A lot of the time it can be both of these things.

Other times it’s the other way around. If I have a design that just comes to me, I start asking myself “Why does this character appear this way?”. It’s almost like I am having a conversation with this character and they are answering back to me. Like I am a tailor making pleasant conversation while I measure the character for their final fitting. I often find that this method has the best results. How a character can answer in your mind can feel just as surprising as people’s answers in real life!

I try not to keep a concrete method though. People are very varied in the world and I feel a story is far more rich when I try to reflect that variation. This means I need to have as many approaches as possible and switch it up as much as I can.

What are some of your favorite assets that you created for Sorry We’re Closed?

Rats!

They’re just so cute. I mean, they’re kind of gross, but also cute!!!

I also like the weapons I’ve made for Michelle. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge Sailor Moon fan, and one of the best parts of the show were the weapons.

I wanted Michelle to have something that matched her style, but also match the world she’s being drawn into and felt a dash of magical girl.

The next is my absolute fav! We haven’t shown the mechanics for this one yet so I can’t talk much about it but I think it looks so fun!

What are some tips you can give other indie artists?

Being authentic is always my go to. I’m always about being unapologetically thyself (though it’s important to not bulldoze others). People have connected most with the authenticity in my work, which isn’t to be confused with being “deep”. Sometimes I just want to do something because it looks cool or fun and, if I am honest with that, people can enjoy my creative work on that level. People like art because it’s a different kind of portal to connect with other people out there. It helps them find new ways to think about their own lives and what they want to do with it, and being authentic is really the only way to make that happen. If you’re wanting to share a part of yourself with the world, you’ll have to be honest about what it is you’re sharing. You’ll reap the rewards of participating in life in the most hardcore and rawest form.