Ambient Studios artist designs Death Inc. abode using real-life scale replica

Rather than draw digital blueprints, lead artist Jon Eckersley on Ambient Studios' upcoming management/god game Death Inc. built a scale model of players' in-game home when designing the piece, reports Kotaku.

Players will use their in-game house as their base of operations, keeping track of inventory and plague-spreading minions in one convenient place. The photos, available on Kotaku, show a tiny replica of the building made out of wood and what appears to be cardstock, complete with a miniature bathtub and staircases. Eckersley explained that he chose to build a physical model rather than settle on sketches in order to make sure all house accoutrements were functional and to create a consist art style.

"Building a physical model forces you to not only work to an art style, but everything must practically function as well", he said. "You can cheat a fair bit with a 2D concept, but you definitely can't when you're making it out of wood and card — that forces you to make a lot of design decisions.

"Those choices directly feedback into the game and sit sloshing about in my head when I'm making actual game assets — how far can I push this without breaking things?" he added. "It makes the world our characters are living in really believable."

Ambient Studios recently released a demo of the prototype for Death Inc., available on the game's official website. Also available on the website is a digital comic based on the title, giving potential players an idea of what's in store.

Last month the developer launched Death Inc. on Kickstarter. The project is currently sitting at £73,552 of its £300,000 funding goal with 9 days left in the campaign.