Project Alpha Initial Reference Imagery

By David Roberts, Creative Director

Yaksha are the guardians of temples, a parallel to infantry and armour known for taking and holding ground.

The Naga or Paya Nag is a serpentine deity strongly associated with both the Mekong River and parallels Sobek. Mekong-adjacent cultures date back as far as Egypt so the comparison is not an idle one.

Kinaree, are the most important of all, as the Vietnam War whilst not the first use of air superiority, is the first instance of militarised air vehicles in ground combat, specifically the armament of the Huey.

Unlike hubs such as in the developed West and urban Japan, a Thailand-based studio is directly located in Project Alpha’s environment. Much of Udon Thani was built during the GI boom of the 1960s, as such reference imagery can be procured ad-hoc.

A comp. would be how Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Akiba are often portrayed extremely well in JRPGs due to environment familiarity of the artists.

There is also a level of novelty within the medium for locations such as these.

Northern/Northeastern Thailand is an incredibly rich source of original, identifiable, iconography and environment. Project Alpha will use deities from traditional animism to symbolically depict Army, Navy and Air Force using Yaksha, Naga and Kinaree respectively.

As shown below, buildings can often be seen depicting scenes allowing for visual narrative cues rather than blatant exposition.

Cultural iconography has been used as USP in comps. notable in Black Myth Wukong and Silent Hill f.

Remnants of the Vietnam War are abundant, with Willys Jeeps, decommissioned Hueys, even airbases and listening posts are a prominent part of the local scenery half a century later.

This becomes especially relevant past reference imagery, when looking to procure assets for photogrammetry, live-action, and marketing whilst holding material and monetisable asset-value through preservation.

This piece is intended as reference imagery and is not indicative of playable segments within Project Alpha or as expanded media. However, the underlying production in conjunction with proprietary IP is subject to international copyright.