The Resident Evil-inspired cannibal dungeon crawler Medium Rare features a delightful art-style trick involving stock photos.
Medium Rare uses stock photos and dithering to craft a Resident Evil-inspired cannibal dungeon crawler whose visual vibe drives its identity.
Background: A Strong Vibe Comes Before Mechanics
The hook for Medium Rare is its nebulously designed Strong Vibe: a look that separates the game before its mechanics are visible. The title is a Resident Evil-inspired dungeon crawler role-playing game about rescuing your wife from a human meat factory, and it carries a deliciously nasty vibe.
Spoiler warning: the premise is the main story setup. It takes place in a world where global resources have run out and "cannibalism has been industrialised."
The game uses a grid-based map and dungeon exploring structure common to the genre. Its combat twist places enemies across a three-by-three grid. The distance between you and an enemy affects how much damage you do. Dice rolls drive the fight, and weapon choice is critical in determining how likely you are to survive.
Resident Evil influences appear in tile-based inventory management, infected enemies hunting you down, and rare resting spaces that act as points of respite.
Development: Stock Photos Become the Crunchy Visual Identity
The crunchy look has inspired origins: stock photos. The assets come from real photographs run through Photoshop, then dithered to create crunchy, sickly images that flirt with pixel art.
A developer vlog titled "We Made Our Entire Game With Stock Photos" shows that the photographs used in the game are all stock photos. The video is presented on YouTube and covers the early stages of putting an asset together.
This method is essentially photobashing: combining photographs into a new visual asset. The source describes photobashing as a somewhat forgotten and underappreciated artform that has been further ruined by the introduction of generative AI.
Latest Progress: The Game Is Defined by Its Look and Its Grid
The material available now frames Medium Rare as a project whose identity is already clear: a nasty premise, a stock-photo visual process, and a dungeon crawl built around a three-by-three grid.
For readers, the useful detail is the separation between vibe and systems. The game gets attention because its look is immediately readable, while its mechanics add distance-based damage, dice rolls, weapon selection, and survival pressure. The result is a dungeon crawler whose appeal begins with its image and continues with the way its grid makes every placement matter.
FAQ
What is Medium Rare?
Medium Rare is a Resident Evil-inspired dungeon crawler RPG about rescuing your wife from a human meat factory in a world where global resources have run out and cannibalism has been industrialised.
What are the main gameplay mechanics?
The game uses a grid-based map and dungeon exploring structure, with enemies placed on a three-by-three grid. Distance between the player and enemies affects damage, dice rolls drive combat, and weapon choice is critical for survival. It also features tile-based inventory management, infected enemies hunting the player, and rare resting spaces.
How was the visual style created?
The game’s crunchy visual identity was made from stock photos that were processed in Photoshop and dithered to create sickly, near-pixel-art images. The source calls this method photobashing and notes that the game’s assets are all stock photos.
Is release platform, date, price, or Chinese localization information available?
The article does not provide release platform, release date, price, or Chinese/localization details. It only describes the game’s premise, mechanics, visual style, and available development information.
Tagsdungeon crawlerMedium Rarestock photosphotobashingResident Evil-inspired
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