by Maria Nikolskaya Hello, my name is [user=Morgana_221b]Maria[/user], and I am the International Projects Manager at Hobby World. Today I invite you to go behind the scenes to see how Mezen, our 2023 release from designer Nikita Sorokin, appeared...
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Let's start with an overview of the published game:
In the far far north, in the land of dark days and white nights, flows the river Mezen. From meadows and forest edges, horses gallop towards it, birds flock to it, foxes run to it. Not even the man could resist this river. The man walked to it and stayed for centuries. The nature of Mezen amazed the man so much that he decided to commemorate it. He gathered soot, black as the night itself, and clay, red as the sun, picked up a brush and started creating. That is how the famous Mezen painting came about — the style upon which this game is based.
In Mezen, you take on the role of a northern craftsman, creating intricate ornamental paintings to order. Combine symbols and flip tiles to accomplish goals and earn points.
Each turn, players choose a group of adjacent identical symbols to remove from their "painting" and slide down the tiles above to fill the empty spots. After that, they flip the removed tiles to their opposite side — from white to black — and place them in the newly empty spots. By changing the placement of symbols this way, the players try to accomplish goals and score. Whoever has the most points after ten rounds wins.
In Mezen, you take on the role of a northern craftsman, creating intricate ornamental paintings to order. Combine symbols and flip tiles to accomplish goals and earn points.
Each turn, players choose a group of adjacent identical symbols to remove from their "painting" and slide down the tiles above to fill the empty spots. After that, they flip the removed tiles to their opposite side — from white to black — and place them in the newly empty spots. By changing the placement of symbols this way, the players try to accomplish goals and score. Whoever has the most points after ten rounds wins.
When the game came to our development studio in 2022, it wasn't anywhere near what it looks like now — and you can see from the pictures that the original theme had different symbols with no real connection between each other. It took around a month to adjust the mechanisms and make sure the gameplay was balanced, then it got to the hands of our producer for the game to fully show itself.
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The idea to connect it to art of the northern cultures had been out there for some time, but there were no specifics. We tried to use Siberian nation clothing ornaments, tried Gzhel and Hohloma, but those things are common to everyone in Russia and even all over the world. We wanted to find something unique.
By chance, Vladimir Grachev, the producer of the game who worked on the setting and the whole how-it-has-to-look thing, was from Arhangelsk – a place of great historical significance in terms of folk craft — so the idea of the setting sprang from our producer's roots. Vladimir came up with the idea of using Mezen art, which is common in Archangelsk, but not well-known in other regions.
Some background on Mezen art:
Mezen painting is one of the Russian northern painting styles, which originated near the river Mezen in the Arkhangelsk Governorate and became popular in the 19th century. In the olden times, northern craftsmen would decorate spinning wheels, baskets, and kitchen utensils with Mezen paintings. The Mezen style combines Finno-Ugric patterns and symbols with images of animals that were common in the river area.
For people of those times, every symbol had a meaning, so the whole painting created a story of a person's life.
Similarly, most of the patterns and symbols in the game are not random — the majority of them reflect meanings connected to earth, ground, soil, and so on. For instance, amulets are designed with the symbols of soil, seeds and plants.
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In order to create the graphics for the game and keep it authentic, Vladimir did impressive research, read study guidelines and reference books, and even consulted an expert in the sphere! Even so, at some points he had to sacrifice visual precision for the sake of playability.
The main focus of the gameplay is on tiles that you flip, slide down, move, and...just look at. When you prepare for the game, you need to easily distinguish the various elements. When you think about your move, you need to quickly figure out where are the horses, but not the foxes or birds. What side of the tile is up now? Does this element form a group with those?
All these things are supposed to happen quickly in your mind; your eye should grasp what's needed so that your brain can move on to what's next. You do not usually think about such details when you play, unless the graphic design — the artwork, the design of the tiles, their form, size, and color — is made poorly.
Here are some of the major decisions we made regarding the game's visual aspects:
SYMBOLS
From the first design of each symbol to the final one, we ran through at least ten different options, from slight changes to major redesigns. At first, aside from the animal, the tile design contained frames, ornaments, day/night symbols, and whatnot. The balance between too many details and an image that was too plain was achieved through trial and error.
Here is the evolution of each animal from the first design to its final cut:
FISH
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FOX
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BIRD
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HEDGEHOG
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HORSE
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The horse was sort of a lab rat and went through more changes than any other tile. Even at the final stage its design was still modified in small ways:
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The spruce tile, which is kind of a joker, also went through several changes from a reindeer to a spruce to a ship, then back to a spruce again.
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DETAILS
Aside from the animal design, at certain stages the tiles contained frames and additional symbols, which were meant to serve not only a decorational purpose, but also to distinguish between different sides of the tiles.
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BACK SIDE
The dark side of the tiles wasn't always black. It took some time and a bunch of other options before it finally turned to the dark side.
We tried different colors of the frame and background, sun and moon symbols, color-filled and colorless images — all to avoid breaking the Mezen painting tradition because in that craft, the background was usually white (or wooden), while the black color was used only to paint small details. Those options weren't good enough, though, so the decision was made to bend tradition a little for the benefit of the playability.
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SHAPE
To help players distinguish different animal symbols more easily, we tried to put them in various geometric figures and even to place several symbols on one tile (as on playing cards) – but in the end, these ideas were put aside.
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After all these stages of design development, the balance was found in minimum details, smooth forms, and simple colors.
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I hope you'll be able to enjoy both the visual aspect and the playing process of Mezen once it's out in the world.
Maria Nikolskaya
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