Alison Williams

Kowloon

2017

For a college project, I was given the brief to develop visual assets for a fictional game of my choice.

I had recently learned about Kowloon Walled-City: a densely populated, ungoverned settlement in Hong Kong that had been controlled by triads and riddled with crime - particularly during the 50s and 60s. The unusual ‘city’ was eventually cleared and demolished in the 1990s. It fascinated me to learn of this unique place which no longer existed, and a place that had been a rich source of inspiration for dark, oppressive environments such as the worlds of Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell and other sci-fi worlds.

I developed a game that would be based in Kowloon Walled-City, during its peak activity in the 50s. I wanted to utilise the labyrinthine environment by requiring the player to undertake errands and perform parkour to traverse the city.

Character Design

For the characters in the game, I wanted to incorporate the triads who had controlled Kowloon Walled-City. The player would experience the world through Lin, the daughter of a prominent gang leader. She would start the game acting as an errand girl to her father, ignorant to the sinister undercurrent of his business. As the game progressed, she would stumble upon the true nature of her family’s role in the city, and the player would then decide whether to comply with her family, or to rebel against the gang.

I wanted Lin to come across as capable and streetwise initially, but to have a sense of innocence and naivety to her, while her older brother (who is knowingly complicit in their father’s work) to be affable and sympathetic, yet intimidating when he needed to be.

ENVIRONMENT

For the environments in the game, I wanted to capture the claustrophobia that would come with living most of your life in such a compact and enclosed space. The homes would be grungy, poorly sanitised, yet every inch would be utilised by its residents in order to maintain a somewhat liveable existence.