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If you’ve seen the trailer or played the demo for Crystals, then you know how beautiful the next fantasy role-playing game is. But did you know that the fantasy kingdoms and cathedrals in the game are inspired by real Colombian monuments? Find out how The Dreams Uncorporated development team instilled their love for their home country into Tale of Criesthe magical world of.
Love for your country can be a powerful force. Dreams Uncorporated and Syck CEO Carlos Rocha Silva and Art Director Sebastian Villareal are both from Colombia, a country known to many in the United States as the place where people take drugs on our procedural TV shows. policewomen. Living in the countryside, Silva and Villareal experience a side of Colombia that we rarely see here in the United States. Their country is one of breathtaking architecture and magnificent views. For example, take a look at Puerta del Reloj, the city gate of Cartagena de Indias on the north coast of Colombia.
It is striking and daring. Yellow might as well be gold. The clock tower above the door looks like something taken straight from a fantasy video game. And so the developers turned it into this.
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the Crystals The location is more stylized, of course, but the real-world location and the fantastic setting share a similar beauty that shines in whatever image you look at. As CEO Carlos Rocha Silva explains, it’s magical realism in reverse.
“In general, we really wanted to romanticize what we call the magic of Colombia, so much so that many wonderful books such as A hundred years of loneliness of our Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Marquez, has written so much about magical realism, a concept that takes magical elements and shows them as everyday things, but with Crystals, we wanted to reverse that concept, ”Silva said in an email interview with Kotaku. “(We) used something we called Endemic Fantasy, which transforms the everyday elements of our country and turns them into a magical version of themselves that can enter this world.”
And so the developers take a place like the Sanctuary of Las Lajas, a basilica church built inside the canyon of the Guáitara river and the favorite place of artistic director Sebastian Villareal…
… And turn it into a magic castle.
There is so much magic in the real world location.
Turning it into a magical palace seems almost easy.
One of my favorite transformations is the Tequendama Falls Museum. A former abandoned hotel, the museum overlooks Tequendama Falls on the Bogotá River. In the real world, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.
In the world of Crystals, it is quite another thing.
Although it has undergone many changes in the transition from the real world to the game, the Tequendama Falls Museum is still there, instantly recognizable to someone familiar with the location.
It’s not just about incorporating buildings into the game. Here we see works of art from the pre-Columbian Quimbaya civilization. See how the Dreams Uncorporated team incorporates this unique style into Crystals.
Do you see that type of cartoon frog?
Even he has a real world counterpart.
Crystals, apart from being a love letter to classic Japanese RPGs, is a celebration of the Colombian heritage of a few guys who have been immersed in it all their lives. Even the name of the game refers to a place of Colombian beauty, the Caño Cristales, a beautiful multicolored river that turns into the game’s Rainbow Lake.
“It is extremely important for us to show Colombia in a positive light,” said Silva. “We are delighted to see creations such as [upcoming Disney movie] Charm being created, but we really wanted this portrayal to be made by us, for us to use the culture we grew up in, and show it to the world in this particular way, but more importantly, to have a impact as huge as it is most wonderful for us, to have people from all over the world talking about us, that would be wonderful.
Between these lush places of the real world …
… And their fantastic counterparts…
I don’t know if I want to play a game or plan a trip. Maybe both. Crystals releases on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, and Switch on July 20.
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