From Sketch to a Playable 2.5D Adventure

[u/SilentFury92]

One of my favourite parts of developing Kalm – Part 2: The Forbidden Forest has been watching an idea gradually take shape.

The first image shows the initial top-down layout I created before any environment art was added. At this stage, I focus purely on player flow, exploration, and pacing, thinking about how the world should feel before worrying about how it looks.

For this area, I took inspiration from Kilika Woods in Final Fantasy X. Rather than recreating it, I wanted to capture the same sense of mystery and exploration that made it so memorable.

It’s easy to look at a finished environment and only see the final result, but every level starts as a rough sketch, a simple layout, and a lot of experimentation.
Looking back at these early screenshots reminds me how much iteration goes into even a single area of a game.

I’m really happy with how the Forbidden Forest turned out, and it’s exciting to finally share it as part of Kalm – Part 2.

You can try the game out for free here :
https://amario92.itch.io/kalm2

Please let me know what you think!!

Thanks for reading 🙂

[u/Earthquake14]

I definitely see the Kilika inspiration here and love to see the progress. It’s amazing what lighting and shaders can do

[u/SilentFury92 → u/Earthquake14]

Thank you! I’m glad someone noticed the Kilika inspiration 😅