Sticky notes storyboarded Blood Dungeon's animated intro

Before a single frame of the Blood Dungeon intro existed, there was a notebook full of sticky notes. Dann Beeson, the Baltimore artist Messhof credits for the game's intro video, starts by finding a song with the right mood and playing it on a loop, drawing tiny panels on a pad, then shuffling them around and crossing them out until the sequence holds. "It looks like a toddler drew it all," Beeson says in a behind-the-scenes video posted the day the game came out.

The plan for the finished thing was just as contrary: muted backgrounds, big loud characters, and a camera that swings through the dungeon like a 3D film while everyone in front of it stays flat and hand-drawn. "I kind of wanted a bad aesthetic," Beeson says. The hope was that people would watch it and wonder why anyone would make that choice.

Getting something to look that wrong took real labor. Beeson, mostly a 3D artist, built the dungeon as a 3D set so the camera could roam, roughed out the action with 3D stand-ins for the cast, then drew over all of it by hand, shot by shot, dropping finished animation into the sticky-note version as each piece was done. Explosions, gunfire and camera shake went on last. Sound went to Thomas Hoey, the game's composer.

I like this because the trailer is usually the part of a game that gets sanded smooth. Mark Essen's studio has never worked that way. Our Issue 01 profile described a designer whose games thrive on discomfort, and Blood Dungeon is the first Messhof release since Nidhogg with Essen's own art back onscreen. The intro fits right in: one animator, a pad of sticky notes, and a look that is ugly on purpose.

The full intro is on the game's Steam page. Watch it with the sound on.