Retro game revivals are more popular than ever, and while many, like Bubsy 4D, attempt to resurrect fond memories of old series, games like Silent Planet - Elegy of a Dying World try something more daring: to take all that nostalgia and make something new but familiar.
Co-founder and creative director James Alex Santoro talks about that lineage in pretty direct terms too, pointing to retro game console legacy releases, like SNES-era touchstones Super Metroid and Demon’s Crest, but also going further back into the Sega Genesis catalogue where things get rougher around the edges, more abrasive in the best way: “We were mostly influenced by games such as Flashback, Chakan: The Forever Man, and X-Men, all of them on Sega Genesis. There’s a distinct grittiness that elevates their visuals.”
And that word – grittiness – kind of hangs over everything in Silent Planet, from the layered map design to the way lighting is used as storytelling. This is shaping up to be an interesting indie game that’s building an original world while still offering those who love retro games subtle references and familiar gameplay to scratch that nostalgia itch.
Visit Silent Planet for more game details, but read below for insights from the game's creative director, James Alex Santoro, into how it's being made.
CB: What retro era or hardware inspired Silent Planet most, and why?
James Alex Santoro: Even if the visuals are very reminiscent of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, we were mostly inspired by SNES-era games; notably Super Metroid, Demon’s Crest, and even the Prince of Persia port. It’s the grittiness and texture that I feel creates a fantastic atmosphere.
CB: How did you balance retro authenticity with modern clarity and UX?
JAS: This is a tough one (laughs). Earlier in production, our first draft for the User Interface was pixel-oriented. But due to the amount of information that we need to convey to the player with ease, we switched to a more modern yet minimalist visual design for the user experience.
Our process is to always maintain a balance between clarity and aesthetics that fit with the retro visuals of the game world.
CB: Where do your creature and boss inspirations and ideas come from?
JAS: From the narrative, primarily. But inspiration also comes from cinema, the modern world, and nature itself. It’s important for us that our designs help communicate the narrative through their depiction and also through their motion.
CB: How do you plan the map design - do you start with paper and pencil?
JAS: Yes, we begin first by drafting rough layouts, but the process is a bit more complex than for many other 2D games since we use a three-layers depth system. Which means we have to carefully plan how everything will work. There’s a lot of internal testing involved in the process.
CB: When do you stick to retro-like constraints, and when do you break them?
JAS: We broke the rules when it comes to the User Interface, mainly. But for the rest of the project, we stick to strict constraints not only to deliver an experience that looks and feels like the classic games we remember, but also to maintain a healthy organisation to avoid scope creep.
CB: How do you make the game stand out in today’s ‘90s/retro revival trend?
JAS: We are not really focusing as much on standing out, but rather on developing a project that stays true to the stories we want to tell. I would say our main focus is to deliver a game that will be enjoyed by many and hopefully remembered with love and nostalgia in 20-30 years, just as much as we do remember all those fantastic titles from the 80s and 90s.
CB: How do visuals help communicate decay or memory in the world?
JAS: The world of Silent Planet is one shaped by loss and decay, and we want the player to feel those emotions, even before they read a single line of lore. Crumbling architecture, colour palettes that evoke decline and blight, and environmental details that suggest something was once alive here- these all do narrative work. Visuals are really the first language the world speaks with the player.
CB: What role do lighting, and textures play in shaping tone?
JAS: Enormously important. Lighting in particular can shift a space from melancholy to threatening in an instant. We treat texture almost like a sound design choice: roughness, wear, and decay all add to a sense of weight and history that clean pixel art simply doesn't carry. We also use a system of sprite shadows that help us convey depth while acting as an invisible guiding hand for the player.
CB: Which modern tools have most changed how you achieve a retro look?
JAS: Modern shader and post-processing tools let us be more precise about how we apply retro constraints and also how we elevate the atmosphere without straying too far from the targeted final look.
CB: Is the retro revival evolving, and where does your game fit in?
JAS: The revival has definitely matured at this point in time. Early pixel art revival games often leaned heavily on nostalgia as the product itself. But what we're seeing now, and what we're trying to contribute to, is a generation of games that use retro aesthetics as a language rather than a disguise. Silent Planet wants to sit in that space: visually rooted in the past but telling something new.
Our goal is to use pixel art as a form of visual impressionism which strips away hyper-realism and captures the essence instead. Relying only on the viewer’s imagination and interpretation, we can focus on delivering a deeper narrative instead.
