What is 1000xRESIST?
After the devastation of a deadly pandemic, humanity’s remaining population exists solely through clones of the disease’s sole survivor, the ALLMOTHER. This is the basis for the narrative sci-fi game 1000xRESIST, and it sets the stage for a powerfully written story exploring revolution, generational trauma, and personal identity. Created by independent game studio Sunset Visitor, 1000xRESIST brings an interactive approach to storytelling through over 10 hours of gameplay and 15,000 lines of voiced dialogue.
A defining feature of 1000xRESIST is its visual style, supporting the game’s emotional narrative through thoughtful character design, vibrant colors and expressive camera work. To learn more about the process behind this style, I talked with the game’s Art Director, Kodai Yanagawa. Our conversation covered Kodai’s creative methods, the team’s artistic inspiration, and the challenges of working on an independent game.
Kodai Yanagawa: Art Director, Concept Artist, Animator
Working on 1000xRESIST was Kodai’s first introduction to the creative world of game development. At a small studio, his role as art director was multifaceted and spanned the entire visual development process from early concept sketches to final cutscene animations. Coming from mostly 2D art experience, he was also learning to use many of the 3D modeling and game development tools as he went along.
Kodai’s involvement with 1000xRESIST started as a freelance artist, creating the concept art and demo graphics needed to pitch the game to investors. After the funding came in, he began working full-time with Founder and Creative Director, Remy Siu, on the initial concepts and styles that formed the foundation of the game. He spent the first couple days creating rough line sketches based on various inspirations ranging from other influential games to public transit spaces. This process quickly progressed to more intricate drawings, adding color and detail to the concept sketches.
In our conversation, Kodai highlighted the differences between a small team like Sunset Visitor and a major, AAA game studio; independent studios with tight schedules must rapidly create concept art and move on, while large studios may spend several weeks perfecting concept art before code development begins. This was exactly the case with 1000xRESIST, where the game concept art was continually improved and solidified alongside coding and 3D modeling.
Character Design
In particular, Kodai discussed the consistent iteration of the main character concept art throughout the game development process. Many of the game’s characters, including the player, are clones who share the same body and basic character model. Using a society of clones was a unique and effective choice by the team, as it allows the game’s narrative to explore a nature vs nurture theme while also allowing Kodai to spend his limited time on perfecting one core character model. After perfecting this primary character art, the secondary characters were more easily created from the reference model.
He started the character design process with simple, hand-drawn sketches exploring different poses, expressions, and personalities ranging from cute and innocent to defiant and serious. Various differences in attire were also drawn, most notably the distinctive masks reminding players of the game world’s deadly pandemic. Building on the sketches, Kodai created detailed 3D renderings in Blender, a 3D modeling program, to begin solidifying the finer details of the character. Finally, the sketches and models were painted over in a drawing program with vivid colors, starkly contrasting the characters from each other and their environments despite sharing a few core traits.
Environment Design
In an intentional contrast to the detailed, vibrant character designs, many of the environments in 1000xRESIST are minimalistic - almost eerily clean. The lighting and background colors are highly descriptive, setting the mood for a scene before any dialog is spoken. Kodai’s process for creating environment concept art was generally similar to the character design, although some areas skipped right over the concept sketch and painting steps and were created directly in Blender or Unity. In an effort to reduce scope and workload, the team also creatively reused many environments throughout the game - similar to how a TV series may utilize “standing sets” for various scenes throughout a season.
One of my favorite concept art pieces from the game is a small living area used by the clones. The area is a small apartment with moody, night lighting and an almost cell-like feeling. Kodai attributed some inspiration to Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, especially with the minimalist design and small circular window. We can see his progression through various stages of rough sketches and early paintings, experimenting with different colors and details, and eventually landing on the dark aesthetic shown in the final concept painting. Although the room ended up a bit larger in the final game for playability reasons, Kodai still described the environment art as a mood-setting piece that influenced the colors and design choices used throughout the game.
Cinematography and Pre-Visualization
The final stages of the art development process in the making of 1000xRESIST were the most demanding: over a hundred animated shots needed to be completed for the cinematic cutscenes in just a couple months before the scheduled release date. Compared to a Hollywood film where a production team may spend weeks on a single 5-10 second shot, Kodai told me they were rapidly producing a few shots a day. The animation process required a dedicated effort from the team and extra help from freelance animators and actors. Kodai led most of the camera work and animation by drafting pre-visualization (pre-vis) materials and combining various shots from freelance animators.
In 3D animation, pre-vis materials allow directors to plan camera angles, character movements, and timing before creating the final, detailed animation. An example of this is a storyboard, which is generally a grid of 2D sketches that map out key moments of an animated sequence. Kodai’s approach was slightly different, as he was using full 3D models to show characters in specific positions throughout the shot. These models were then shared with the animators as a rough guide to create the final shots, which Kodai would stitch together into a finalized cutscene. To keep up with the tight schedule, he would often work late into the night defining the timing, blocking, and camera angles of each shot - sometimes completing the pre-vis just a few hours before presenting it to the animators in the morning.
Despite the intense workload, Kodai described sequencing and animation as his biggest passion and strength. He used his sequencing skills and high quality camera motion to cover up imperfections in the scenes that the team was unable to fully polish. Those two months of very little sleep may sound like a nightmare, but he showed an appreciation for the thrill of the work, even describing it as a “runner’s high”.
1000xRESIST Release and Reception
All of the dedicated work put into 1000xRESIST by the Sunset Visitor team was shared in May of 2024 when the game was publicly released. In the months since, it has received overwhelmingly positive reviews by casual players and critics alike, including honors from the Independent Game Festival and South by Southwest Sydney. CBR named it the 2nd Best Sci-Fi Game Since 2020 and the Best Indie Game of 2024, calling it a “Contemporary Masterpiece”. Kodai’s art direction also received glowing praise, with IGN saying,
“[1000xRESIST shows] strength in its art direction and visual storytelling. The shot composition of each sequence and the cinematography of its cutscenes communicate so much of what doesn’t need to be outright said … Sunset Visitor flips its technical limitations into one of its greatest assets, letting its creative techniques speak as loud as its words”
If you have enjoyed the concept art and creativity behind 1000xRESIST, experience the game yourself on Steam and Nintendo Switch.