Neva Lead Producer Talks Making Its Art Style, Changes From…

Neva is an upcoming action-platforming game by the creators of the beautiful and critically acclaimed Gris. Developed by Nomada Studio, Neva follows the story of the titular white wolf who is joined by the player character Alba. However, while Gris takes players on a journey through the five stages of grief, Neva walks players through the parent-child relationship between Alba and Neva. This is represented in their art styles as well, with the former being more limited in its colors and the latter having a broader palette for these stages of life and nature itself. Of course, Neva' s art is just one way that Nomada sought to do things differently from Gris but create a game that's just as beautiful.

In a recent interview with The Best War Games, Neva's lead producer Roger Mendoza spoke more about the game's art style and its changes from Gris, including the inspirations of one particular renowned 19th-century painter. Mendoza also discussed how these artistic changes impacted Neva's animation processes and much more. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

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Neva's Character Design

Q: Could you tell us anything about Neva and Alba's backstory and how they came to meet?

A: Yeah, there's not a lot of backstory we want to explain. In the beginning, we start at the point where they get together and start taking care of each other, but there's no special story - we leave that up to the interpretation of the player. There's not a lot of backstory to the characters for this reason.

Q: Why did you choose a wolf cub for Neva, and did you consider any other animals when designing Neva’s character?

A: At the very beginning, it was supposed to be a human, and it was one of the restrictions, I guess, or demands that I sent to Conrad [Roset, Nomada creative director]. This idea, he said, was “no problem.” There were some technical issues we were having with animals, but Conrad developed a lot of good points about why the connection would be stronger if we used an animal than just two humans. When we were prototyping, designing, and discussing, pretty quickly, the idea of the wolf came. Obviously, we have a lot of influence from Princess Mononoke, the Studio Ghibli movie. He did a couple of designs super fast, and we were happy with that.

Neva's Studio Ghibli Inspirations and Opening Sequence

Q: Did Princess Mononoke influence the game in any other ways? I thought some of the enemies reminded me of No Face from Spirited Away.

A: Spirited Away? Yeah. The whole game has a bit of a theme. The core idea of the game is parenthood, taking care of someone, growing up with them, and they end up taking care of us, but the world is dying and rotting. That's something similar to what happened to Mononoke, where there is this bad influence that is destroying the forest. There are a few hints – I wouldn’t say it’s direct – but hints to Mononoke that we just wanted to put because, as I said, at least for me, it’s my favorite Studio Ghibli movie. I know Conrad likes it a lot, so we took a couple of ideas from there.

Q: I also saw Conrad say the book The NeverEnding Story, the concept of The Nothing was quite influential for the game. Could you talk a bit more about that, or if there are any other kinds of pop culture influences or stories from elsewhere?

A: Yeah, he really likes The Neverending Story. He really liked this idea of The Nothing, of this presence that is everywhere, but it's not super specific. That is something that we wanted to do with Neva in the sense that we're not telling what's happening or where things are coming from, necessarily. It's more of you trying to see that the world is dying, and you'll have to face your fears.

In terms of pop culture, he also took a lot of inspiration from Monet, the painter, when building the backgrounds and everything. Again, just to give an illustration from games, we looked a lot at Last Guardian, which is also taking care of and raising someone. It's a game that we really love, and it was a good foundation for building that role. It was a good place to start and see what they did and try to take the best things around that and do it our way.

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Q: Why did you choose to begin Neva with the death of a bird and does that kind of have any connection with Gris?

A: No. When we started thinking about Neva, obviously a lot of people asked us “Are you going to do Gris 2, or something like that?” We think Gris has its own story, it’s self-contained. There’s a beginning and an end, but I think there's a lot of expansion that we're going to work on in the Gris universe. The idea of the bird was a way to connect the whole of nature and the start of the decaying world. We wanted to show how the world decays and that obviously brings the animals together, but there's no connection between Gris and Neva. There are a couple of things that we brought from Gris to Neva, but not in a narrative sense.

Neva's Sound And Music Design, Working With Berlinist

Q: Gris players went on an emotional journey with the music. Could you talk about the music and sound design in Neva, and how you approach that from a story perspective?

A: Well, we worked with Berlinist, which is the same band that worked on Gris. Since day zero, they have been part of the project. It’s not like we showed them the game like, “Okay, we need the music.” They've been with us since when we started doing concepts, from the very beginning.

In this case, we had the two characters, which plays a big role for the music, but also the seasons. There are four seasons in the game, and each season has its own music theme. How we work with them - again, it’s just sending them a lot of concept art so they can start working on the soundtrack. At the very end, we do the implementation, which is just a lot of back and forth between them and the designers to make sure that, at this moment, the layer is important for the narrative and when the music starts and stops.

For the sound design, once again, we worked with the same guy from Gris, Rubén [Rincón]. He's really good. He has a really good sensitivity. One of the cool things about this project, and it was not intended, is that he has a husky. A lot of the sounds for Neva are his husky, which he recorded back at home, which was a cool thing to be able to add. Usually, the direction of the sound design is to make it subtle. We don't want anything to stand out – not the music, not the art, not the animation. Everything needs to be coherent, so it's a very subtle sound design.

Yeah, and you just reminded me, actually - I read on Twitter there's a baby's heartbeat in a small section.

A: Yeah, Rubén's niece. He recorded the heartbeat, which I think is beautiful. It’s a super awesome thing he's going to be able to tell her in a few years. He usually likes to record these types of things. He takes inspiration from many different things. That's why we love to work with him because he has this special sensitivity that connects really well.

Neva's Art Style, Animation, And Color Palette

Q: Moving on to the art style, it looks like you've used a much bigger color palette in Neva, and maybe a bit less prominent watercolor in the environment than Gris. Could you talk about Neva’ s art style and some of the changes from Gris?

A: Yeah, we wanted to make an art style that you can sit with and make in another game, but we didn't want it to be super continuous with Gris. That's why we dropped a bit of the watercolor theme, and for this game, we have a much wider palette. The colors are also a bit more flat. There's not so much in Gris. I think the biggest difference is that everything has a stroke on Gris. There was a blackout line on everything. Here we don't have that, which is a blessing and curse in a way. It's a blessing because everything looks a bit more coherent. It’s also a curse because sometimes it's difficult to tell things apart. Since you don’t have an outline, you have red and red - the thing looks like the same shape, for example. We had a lot of work on the outside to make sure that the world was easy to understand and that we didn't have these blanks between shapes. I think that can be a difference in terms of art - the no stroke and use of flat colors - and we still have a couple of watercolor things - resources that we used in Gris. But we wanted to do something different.

Q: Did the changes have any impact on the animation process, or did it make it easier or harder?

A: Yeah, we have this story for Gris, which I'm not proud of, where we had this poor artist drawing the hair shades for like six months for the Gris character. Because we had this black shade online, though, you cannot see it in the game at all because it’s super zoomed out. We didn't have to do that this time, which is great because we didn’t have this stroke. For the animation itself, it was not much different. The cleanup, which is the part where we put the land into color, was much simpler, for sure. Which is something that played on our behalf because we have many more animations for the main character. We have the wolf growing up, enemies - it's a much bigger game, so the flat style really helped us there.

Paths and Puzzles In Neva

Q: In Gris, we had some optional puzzles. In Neva, to what extent might players have more puzzles, paths, or maybe secrets? You mentioned it's a bigger game. Is there more to explore?

A: Yeah, I would say it's similar to Gris. You obviously have the main path. It's quite a linear game, but you have hidden collectibles that are a bit more difficult challenges if you want to tackle them. It's up to you, but they are not mandatory at all. The structure, in that sense, is similar to Gris. The fact that you can come back later and pick them up if you want. You can ignore them. And we do have a Story Mode, we call it, which is maybe for players that are less used to playing games and has a couple of gameplay assistance features that also can help you unravel those collectibles.

Q: In terms of how you want players to feel playing the game, is there one key emotion you want to inspire in players, or how much do you want players to kind of have their own meaning and emotions from the game?

A: Yeah, it's complicated. Because with Gris, we never knew if people were going to connect with the game. For us, it was a bit of a gamble. It feels similar in this game in a way, because when we tackle parenthood, obviously there are people who’ve never had a kid or a pet. Again, we compare having a kid to having a pet, but it's the same kind of raising and growing up together.

And this is the kind of thing that we like people to get. This feeling of caring about someone, and how you love it, you grow together, you raise it, and you teach it. These things come back and eventually take care of you in the sense of growing up together. I think it's quite strong in Neva. I didn't have a kid when I started Neva and I have a kid now, so I kind of felt that the shift in the middle. I think, obviously, you connect better with the game with a kid. I don't think it's a requirement, but I think it's a plus.

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