Where our art and sound come from

The short version

Our approach

This game is made by two people that aren't artists. We did have a small art budget for development, which we used entirely to focus on making an incredibly and beautifully realized main character that maximizes our goal of having an appealing retro aesthetic, but with modern responsiveness and control.

That means that most of the art throughout the world comes from art licensed from various artists selling their work on itch.io, including the environments and enemies you see throughout the game. We have listed every pack we used with a link, so you can buy the same assets, or just go support the people who made them. Beyond that, we also did use AI-generated art to fill gaps not met by work found on itch.

This approach is what worked best for us given our skills, resources, budget, and gameplay aims.

Commissioned art

Main character artwork

Ziii herself was drawn for us. We commissioned Vincent Dang to design and animate the character you spend the whole game looking at.

Vincent Dang

Character design & sprite animation

See more of their work ↗

Licensed assets

Asset packs we bought

Twenty-three packs from nine artists do the bulk of the work you see and hear. Every link goes to the pack we licensed, so you can buy the same assets, or just go support the people who made them.

Sound effects

AI-assisted art

The images AI was used for

This is the AI-generated art used in the game. A few of these images will note that they represent multiple assets that are similar.

AI-generated

The Ziii character mark

The hooded silhouette used on the cover art and across the store page.

AI-generated

The title screen

The backdrop behind the logo on the title screen.

AI-generated

Relic close-ups

The close-up images of the relics you collect and place in your vault. One shown here, representative of the set.

AI-generated

The Salty Seagull

The ship itself, as you see it from the helm.

AI-generated

The bridge

A single structure, shown here in full. There is just the one.

AI-generated

Altars

The altars you come across while exploring. One shown here, representative of the set.

AI-generated

Manual illustrations

Illustrations used through the instruction booklet. One shown here, representative of the set.

In-house

Soundtrack

Every track in Ziii was written and produced in-house. The songs can be found on the soundtrack page, free to listen to and download.