THE ART OF
PAWEŁ KOZAKOWSKI ART DIRECTOR MIKOŁAJ ADAMSKI CONCEPT ARTIST ALICJA GRZYBOWSKA 2D & UI DESIGNER AGATA KUN LEAD ARTIST KATARZYNA RUTKOWSKA 3D CHARACTER DESIGNER DAMIAN SZABELSKI 3D DESIGNER MATEUSZ SZCZEPANIAK LEVEL ARTIST MICHAŁ TOMASZEWSKI 3D ANIMATOR
TABLE OF CONTENTS 04 THE MORTUARY 03 FOREWORD 14 JACK’S APARTMENT 24 CADAVERS 31 CLIPBOARD & UI 37 VARIOUS DESIGNS Burned man Artist: Katarzyna Ruktkowska
FOREWORD Autopsy Simulator has been a labour of love for everyone involved. Combining our interest of simulator games and our love of true crime. There are so many people we could thank for supporting us through the creation of this game however, you the gamers are the people we hold dearest. With the overwhelming support you have shown for our game we are able to do what we love and more importantly tell Jack’s story. While not in the truest sense there is a little Jack Hanman in us all and we like to think that this game will speak to everyone on the importance of dealing with loss, stressful working situations and how everything can spiral so easily. We want you to enjoy this game to it’s fullest potential and hope you can sense every blood, sweat, and tears that went into this game… literally.
THE MORTUARY AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 4 Based in New Orleans in the fictitious town of Petesville we find Jack’s Mortuary. Unironically throughout the game Jack mentions how at ease he feels at this place. Quite unnerving considering exactly what you are doing. You spend a lot of your time in there as the story evolves. As you make it through the story the mortuary evolves around you too. Once a haven for Jack, soon turns into his own personal nightmare.
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Artist: Mikołaj Adamski The Mortuary itself is quite an unassuming building. Red brick and flat top very fitting for the period and style of building. Lots of windows around for peeping opportunities and split into various rooms to encourage exploration and properly feel like a place of work. HOW IT’S LOOKS IN GAME AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 6 Our case notes are the initial building blocks to painting a story in Autopsy Simulator. Our focus with these were to keep them inline with the 90s and as correct towards what people in the mortuary would have access to when a body came into the mortuary. MORTUARY BUILDING
AUTOPSY ROOM AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 7 Jack Hanmans playground, a scientifically accurate depiction of an Autopsy Room and how it would have looked like back in the 90s. However, due to Jack and his personality tendencies it’s not exactly how a by the books pathmorphologist would keep it. Donuts near the dead bodies Jack really? As the player spends most of their time in this room, we paid a lot of attention to the surroundings adding multiple details points to keep the player engaged and give them all the right tools for the job. We focused on a lot of details in level art to create so realistic atmosphere as possible. Also we want to keep 90’s vibe.
LOUNGE CONCEPTS VARIANTS VS IN GAME AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 8 The entrance to the mortuary a brief rest bite before venturing into the bowl of the beast. As with most game design and art vision the look and feel of the lounge changed quite a bit during development. This 90s vibe had to ring true, but we also wanted to created to correct vibe and atmospheric tones throughout. Artist: Mikołaj Adamski
CORRIDOR CORRIDOR IN GAME AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 9 The corridor connects Jack to all the rooms he needs to do his day-to-day business. When Ridley has forgotten how to do his job Jack will also have to push the body down to the morgue. Alongside the atmosphere in other aspects of the game the corridors in this game are a sight to behold themselves. The corridor is used to bring unease to the player throughout the game. Keep your eyes pealed because there are a lot of scares to be found here. DETAILS An important aspect of our game to bring realism was the level of details we added around the game in areas where you might not necessarily expect it. One of these areas being the corridor we added details to make it feel like the corridors are that of a scientific working environment which also gave us a lot to play with when it comes to the scares.
LABORATORY CONCEPTS VS IN GAME AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 10 A wealth of knowledge can be found here and a deep dive into the scientific tests that a body can undergo postmortem are explored here. It’s cleaned but cluttered which is a lot better than what we can say about the morgue itself. Thanks to Jack’s understanding of himself though we can always get to where we need to be with his helpful handbook and detailed descriptions of what’s next. He’s a pure academic at heart! We pride ourselves on the lab, our team did a fantastic job of creating exactly what we concepted into the game. This was important to us when trying to keep true to the scientific realism that lives throughout Autopsy Simulator Artist: Mikołaj Adamski
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski MR RIDLEY’S ROOM SKETCHES AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 11 Mr Ridley’s room is like any good janitors’ room should be. Stacked with supplies, a comfortable chair and all his tools needed to support Jack around the mortuary… when he chooses to do it. Ridley will spend a lot of his time in this room while Jack is running around doing his job. While the interacts are quite few and far between something we should all remember “Don’t forget your timesheets Jack”. Mr Ridley’s personality had to beam through when it came to his room. While quite a small room we needed it to be as well kept as he is. Which, if you listen closely to Jack throughout the game is not well kept at all. The room is dirty, cluttered but filled with everything you would need to be a janitor… If he ever took the time to do it!
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski GARAGE CONCEPT VS IN GAME AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 12 As with most people the garage is a treasure trove of items from past to present. One of the rooms with the least use in the game but still offers an area for the player to dive into what the place was once like. However, keep a keen eye out sometimes it’s not always as it seems. Can you hear banging? In the initial concept of the garage, we went for a very simplistic approach. However, as we built the game out it looked a little clean. So, we decided to add a lot of low-level art assets in their to bring it life.
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski Artist: Mikołaj Adamski SHED VARIANTS AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 13 A very typical shed of the time while not to unlike the garage a great building for hiding your unused items in. The shed itself is very typical of the location and period of the game. Going through a lot of variations to make sure that this feel was nailed. What is a good shed without a lick of paint. Through development we went through many different colours and materials with what the shed should be built out of before we finally came to our conclusion of the way it looks in game today. CONCEPTS Another challenge for us was making sure the shed shape made sense, not only for the landscape around the shed and the environment it’s found in but also the era of the game to make it not feel out of place.
This and next page: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 14 JACK’S APARTMENT Looking into someone’s apartment is a very personal step into their life. Jack has had a lot of hardship, works a very intense job and is suffering from the loss of his wife. This is all represented in this apartment. From the messy rooms to the garbage chucked around Jack’s life is in tatters. He no longer lives in this house he coincides with it. Using it as a place of refuge rather than a loving home to decompress after a long day. The point of interest being that the most organized part of his house happens to be the casket with his wife’s belongings in.
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Artist: Mikołaj Adamski Artist: Mikołaj Adamski MAIN ROOM CONCEPT AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 16 Papers litter the floor and garbage is piled up. This room is a storage facility for items rather than somewhere to come home and live in. Moving away from the mortuary and into a liveable space by our main character meant that we had to really focus on not moving away from our era in which the game takes place. This meant we had to concept a lot of furniture and research what was it like back in the 90s to get a good understanding of how Jack’s house should look. NIGHT ATMOSPHERE Something we haven’t touched on yet is our use of lighting around different areas of the game to bring the iconic atmosphere you feel in Autopsy Simulator. Jack’s house is no stranger to this. We tried many different lighting variants before we nailed the feel of Jack’s home.
MORE FURNITURES Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 17 90’S VIBE To secure the 90s feel of the game we had to look at many catalogues from that era to be sure we inline with the game.
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 18 MAIN ROOM VARIANTS When designing Jacks house, we took a while to decide the floor plan. Once the floor plan was secured, we could then get onto picking the wallpapers and wall colours. Once we completed the structure of the room, we moved onto creating the best-looking minimalistic furniture’s that would allow for interesting textures and shapes Artist: Mikołaj Adamski
KITCHEN Empty takeout boxes lay around the counter and the Kitchen hasn’t seen a fresh vegetable in a moment. On the flip side Jack has saved himself on quite a bit of washing up. Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 19 MORTUARY BUILDING In Jack’s flat the main room and the kitchen are the same, so we had to find best style to fit in the room and add atmospheric lighting to fit with the room around it.
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski BEDROOM Jack’s bedroom gives us a better look into his mind. A clean room indicates a clean mind and Jack’s bedroom is as far from clean as you get. Each morning when you wake up you see bottles around, you awake in the clothes from the day before and the first mention of Jack’s pills enters. This setting really needed to reflect the ongoings of the world around Jack and just where his mental state is at the time of the game. AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 20
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 21 BEDROOM VARIANTS As with any good room in your house we played around with the furniture locations to make sure we had the best setting for the bed and the rest of the furniture.
Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 22 BEDROOM AT NIGHT DIFFERENT VIEWS Just like Jack’s main room we needed to make sure the lighting reflected the atmosphere we needed for the room. Jack’s bedroom offers two very different vibes depending on when you are looking at the room. In the daytime Jack’s room looks beautiful with the light gleaming in. At night the bedroom looks cold and lonely a strong feeling we wanted to portray.
JACK’S OFFICE As we see in the game Jack tend to spend most of his time in his Mortuary. Jack’s office is not a place of work but more of a storage solution. Papers cascaded around, items laid out across the chair and a messy pinboard allows us to see that when Jack is away from the mortuary his life is getting away from him. Artist: Mikołaj Adamski AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 23 MORE CONCEPTS Another key location in our story meant more and more concepts around the room itself. We needed to make sure that Jack’s personality oozed throughout. The other factor with everything in Autopsy Simulator was the era this took place and the furniture, cluttered papers and even Jack’s favourite tipple had to be considered.
BATHROOM Usually, a throw away room the bathroom holds a key significance in our game. Jack takes pills to deal with his life. Usually of a morning before work when you wake up it’s the first thing Jack will indicate too, meaning this action of walking to the bathroom becomes almost a Pavlov’s response. AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 24 BATHROOM CONCEPTS Bathrooms from the 90s were immense, crazy tiles and even crazier shower curtains. Bold colours and patterns were in. This meant when it came down to creating the concepts we had a lot to think about. We went through a whole host of different concepts when designing this room when you consider Jack is only in there to take his pills in the morning the detail we went into to ensure the game was inline with the time period set and how important it was for us to do that really makes the game feel more cohesive throughout.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 25 CORRIDOR The corridor which leads to the twisting staircase to let Jack leaves should be as for most people a pleasant leave in the morning. Autopsy Simulator is forever keeping you on your toes in that regard and everything is not quite as it seems. CORRIDOR VARIANT You experience Jack’s headspace in various ways during his walk to work and we need to make sure that the atmosphere was captured from the moment Jack leaves his apartment. This is why we had to delve into so many different variants of the corridor in Jack’s apartment to find the right one. WALL CONCEPTS Upon finishing the overall structure of the corridors we also had to focus in on what type of walls would encourage this location to feel claustrophobic and small at times but still fit within the era of the game.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 26 CADAVERS Autopsy Simulator would be nothing without the Cadavers and our game has a collection of downright disgusting ones. The cadavers are where most of the gameplay starts to flourish which means it always had to be the focus when creating the game. Each body takes you on a grotesque journey with their own twist and turns. From syringing fluid from the bladder to UV light on the outside of the body to search for clues each body will have you guessing at the cause of the death while carefully piecing each part of the puzzle piece together.
Basic Informations Name: Toby Chambers Age: 60-75 Body: Normal Hair color: Bald Height: 170cm Weight: 70 kg Clothing: Typical homeless clothing, dirty and smells AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 27 TOBY CHAMBERS Known locally as “Old Toby”. Unemployed and homeless for at least a few years. He got into fights and was bullied by the town's troubled youth. He was a man who never shied away from alcohol or a cigarette, which was the reason for his homelessness - he abused alcohol already in his youth, where he worked in a suburban coal mine for half his life, and as his life progressed, he became more and more addicted. He was married and divorced, leaving behind two adult sons. He hadn't seen any of his old family members for over fifteen years. 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska
Basic Informations Name: Samantha Baker Age: 28 Body: Skinny Hair color: Bronze Height: 175cm Weight: 55 kg AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 27 SAMANTHA BAKER A local, fallen pop star from a conservative, highly religious family. At the age of 22, she got her 5 minutes of fame by participating in a nationwide talent show. The rock'n'roll lifestyle quickly overwhelmed her. Constant scandals, social pressure and mental problems quickly pushed her into the arms of alcohol and psychotropic substances. Arrested twice for possession of illegal substances. 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska
Basic Informations Name: Harper Lloyd Age: 35 Body: Normal Hair color: Dyed blonde, dark roots. Height: 155cm Weight: 60 kg 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 28 HARPER LLOYD She was known to local police. She was known as quarrelsome,loud, and often came into conflict with her neighbors - Leonard and Dorothy Chelsey. For a long time, no one could identify the causes of this conflict. Only after some time was it possible to determine the cause – Harper suffered from bipolar disorder. She was sent for pharmacological treatment and her cohabitant – a professional truck driver -became her guardian. Unfortunately, despite the therapy, the conflicts did not stop, and their frequency was related to the frequent absence of the cohabitant from home. At that time, Harper was abusing alcohol and combining it with drugs, which led to arguments in which the police also had to intervene. The last message the deceased sent to her common-law partner was "I'll shit in their stupid well and we'll see what their faces will be like!"
Basic Informations Name: James “Jesse” Evans Jr. Age: 30 Body: Obese Hair color: No head Height: 180cm (with head) Weight: 120 kg Clothing: The body was found naked, with clothes lying next to it. Clothes include: Vans, high socks, wide short pants, plaid shirt (short sleeves) 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 29 JESSE EVANS The family reported him missing quite late, trying to hide the fact that Jesse's favourite Mustang and all the money from the cash register were missing from the garage. It was suspected that he had run away with some girls and would be back soon, as usual. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The body was accidentally sniffed out by dogs while searching for a missing child. It was missing its head and genitals and was in a state of active decomposition. The family recognized the body only by its characteristic tattoos.
Basic Informations Name: John Doe Age: - Body: - Hair color: - Height: 180cm (with head) Weight: 80 kg Clothing: - 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 30 JOHN DOE Corpse without clothes. The man was naked when he died. He only had a rope on him. The bodies have their legs tied with rope at the ankles and their hands tied at the wrists. The wrist restraints are in front of the body. A rope is braided around the neck and in front of the body and tied to the wrists. The rope between the neck and wrists must be quite long because the wrists must be at the level of the reproductive organs.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 31 AMBER LOUVE Amber is a young, attractive woman who everyone says looks like an actress, but no one remembers who. Although attractive, Amber didn't stand out from the crowd. She didn't use heavy make-up or dress too extravagantly. She tried to blend in with the crowd. The only thing that could distinguish her from others are unique, colorful tattoos, of her own design, which covered her missing limbs – her right arm and right leg. However, tattoos were usually hidden under clothes and few people knew about them. Basic Informations Name: Amber Louve Age: 25-30 Body: Normal Hair color: Dark bronze/Black Height: 170cm Weight: 60 kg Clothing: - 3D Character Artist: Kasia Rutkowska
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 4 CLIPBOARD & UI Autopsy Simulator encapsulates the true crime feel and this had to come down to the most detailed pieces such as our clipboard and UI. Something about opening your case file and getting down to business felt right in this game even with the terrors happening in the background. We wanted to fully immerse the player into the ideology of being a pathmorphologist while still trying to make the gameplay feel fluid. With this we had to take extra steps to investigate with our very own expert the ins and outs and translate them to the game.
The clipboard is an iconic set piece for Autopsy Simulator. It will guide the player through each of the cadavers and allow them to draw learnings away to deduce the cause of death to report back to the authorities. CLIPBOARD Artist: Lorem Ipsum
As mentioned, the clip board is an iconic piece of kit for Autopsy Simulator. The main challenge here was keeping it align with what pathmorphologist must keep it authentic and then make that resonate in the game as something useful for the players. Due to this we had to go through several versions of the design before we were satisfied with the outcome! Jack mentions in one of his autopsies that every good pathmophologist has these notes pre drawn up to help aid them in their investigation. Meaning we needed to make sure it not only aligned scientifically but also made sense to be something Jack would be using too. PREVIOUS VERSIONS AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 33 Artist: Lorem Ipsum
Autopsy Simulator is set in the 90s and while its distinct features are that of a true crime detective show one of the important things was to ensure that people playing the game felt like they were transported back to America in the 90s. Polaroids, VHS tape, tape recorders and even the camcorder that Jack uses all had to align with the period of which our story took place. UI AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 34 Artist: Alicja Grzybowska MAIN MENU In the main menu we wanted to create a skeuomorphic design. Meaning that we wanted something in game that resembles it real world counterpart. This comes down to the well know feeling of using a VHS to play something in our case the game. For atmosphere we added dirt around the artwork and images of crime scenes to leave the player a little unsettled at what they are coming into.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 35 CASE NOTES Scattered all over Autopsy Simulators UI and theming are the very iconic looking case notes. Our publisher even took them to use as marketing materials. Once we had these, we sprinkled a little bit more of the medical side into it with the scalpels and it all came together for a strong tone for our entire game. TOOL WHEEL As a pathmorphologist the tools at your disposal are crucial. When it came down to how to implement them in game, we needed to highlight the key important on cadaver items and then locate the rest of the scientific experiences around the Mortuary or the Lab. Having this key distinction between what we needed to do on the body and what could be left around allowed us to bring doing an Autopsy to life in a video game.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 36 Artist: Alicja Grzybowska POLICE FOLDERS Our case notes are the initial building blocks to painting a story in Autopsy Simulator. Our focus with these were to keep them inline with the 90s and as correct towards what people in the mortuary would have access to when a body came into the mortuary.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 37 VARIOUS DESINGS In the next section we get into all the design that don’t quite fit into any one section. We will cover why we went for the steam design and some reasoning around the marketing aspects of the game all the way to why do the food packages look the way they do. These highlight some of the more nuanced art decisions behind the game that were still very impactful to the overall storytelling in Autopsy Simulator.
Our steam designs have changed over the lifetime of Autopsy Simulator. A fresh lick of paint around updates, news drops and over a time allowed us to home in on the correct steam design that we wanted for the game. STEAM DESIGNS AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 38
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 39 SOCIAL MEDIA DESIGNS Similarly with the steam designs we were able to align the feel of the game with our social content.
BOOKS COVERS Any good academic person knows that having a whole plethora of books at their disposal is important. Key to one of Jack’s cases! We wanted to make sure that the books created were believable within the context of who Jack was and the job he was doing! AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 40 Throughout the artbook we have mentioned about Autopsy Simulator being set in the 90s in America. This meant when referencing something like a newspaper we had to keep this in mind. On the flip side of that we also needed to be able to tell little stories throughout the game via the newspaper. Keeping this balance allowed us to be creative with the stories but stay true to the theme. NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
BRANDING – TOILETRIES Branding in video games is always a creative challenge, even more so in Autopsy where you have a distinct period you are going for. We wanted to ensure a realistic world where the player could be completely convinced, they were Jack Hanman in the 90s! POSTERS AND NOTES In Autopsy Simulator there are a lot, and we mean A LOT of posters and notes. There are a few reasons for this. One being we are in the 90s the dawn of the fast-food pamphlet. The internet as not as fast as it was now, and advertising was still mainly focused on television or paper marketing. So, we had to create a whole number of advertisements that aligned with that. Secondly a lot of Autopsy Simulator AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 41
IN GAME NOTICE BOARDS In the game to make sure we made use of these posters and stick notes we had in game notice boards which allows us to leave little notes to our AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 42
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 43 BRANDING - FOOD PACKAGINGS Like most items in the game, we had creative challenges with branding the food packages in game. This comes down again to the era in which the game is set. We needed to make sure that nothing stuck out like a sore thumb. We focused on making it feel like iconic brands coming in but with our own twist to fit within our fictitious universe.
AUTOPSY SIMULATOR ARTBOOK | 43 THANK YOU.