The idea of a japanese-themed style for Demonic Digestion came suddenly, and I ended up sticking with it not knowing exactly why.

Being an anime & manga nerd and a karateka, I've always been passionate about Japan and its culture. Because of this, I didn't have to dig into deep research before being able to pull out a convincing style, that gave the game a distinctive feel.

Also, there are already some well-known games that heavily reference a traditional japanese style, and I was especially influenced by Okami and Zelda the Wind Waker.

Here are the first concepts for our game:

But for me it wasn't simply a strategic move: I had a lot of fun quoting Japan's traditional symbolism and its repertory of colorful demons, called yokai. I tried referencing existing yokai as much as I could. For example, the boss from our game explicitly (and very roughly) quotes the gashadokuro demon as it was depicted by Utagawa Kuniyoshi:

Here are some other ukyo-e that show where some choices in our game came from: - http://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/z4-haruhara-specter-c-20140711.jpg - https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/45hiroshigecat-crossing-to-eat.jpg?quality=80

I hope you enjoyed this small behind the scenes of Demonic Digestion, and also I hope I tickled your curiosity towards some aspects of Japan's tradition :)

Thanks for the read, and remember to see all this in action by checking out Demonic Digestion!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/demonic-digestion