How Lunarium Blends Hand-Painted 2D Art With 3D Environments
Lunarium Director Jixiang explains how the team combines hand-painted 2D art, 3D geometry, custom lighting, and Unity tools to build its painterly isometric action RPG.
At first glance, Lunarium looks almost like a collection of hand-painted fantasy illustrations brought to life. The recently released isometric action RPG draws early visual inspiration from Hades and Transistor, but the team has developed its own painterly aesthetic around a surprisingly technical hybrid production pipeline.
Rather than choosing between traditional 2D backgrounds and fully rendered 3D environments, the developers use both, combining hand-painted artwork with modeled geometry while deliberately avoiding conventional 3D lighting.
We spoke with the game's director from Lunarium Game Studio, Jixiang, about developing the game's distinctive visual identity, its hybrid 2D/3D art pipeline, custom Unity tools, combat readability, and the lessons the team learned while tackling an ambitious action RPG as its debut project.
Lunarium immediately stands out through its hand-drawn isometric presentation. What was the original creative vision for the game, and how did the team arrive at this painterly visual style?
Jixiang, Director: We were initially inspired by the art direction of Hades and Transistor. From there, our art director built upon those inspirations, integrating them with their own artistic style to create the final visual identity of Lunarium.
Every background, character illustration, and ornamental detail is described as being drawn by hand. Can you walk us through the art production pipeline, from early sketches and world concepts to final in-game environments, characters, UI, and effects?
Jixiang: The character production follows a fairly standard 3D character pipeline, but without using traditional 3D lighting. For the environments, we combine both 2D and 3D workflows. Some environmental assets are fully modeled in 3D, while others are hand-painted 2D artwork. Because of this hybrid approach, conventional 3D lighting wasn't suitable, so we developed a custom 2D lighting system to illuminate our 3D-perspective environments. This allows our artists to approach each scene as if they were painting a single illustration, giving them much greater artistic freedom and consistency.
The game follows Ave, an agile knight, and Lune, a mysterious Starfarer, as paired protagonists. How did the relationship between these two characters shape the game’s art direction, combat design, and storytelling?
Jixiang: From an artistic perspective, since both protagonists are young women, we naturally wanted the world to feel more delicate and graceful, and that philosophy also extends to the narrative.
In combat, we wanted to emphasize their different identities and strengths, creating a sense of cooperation and complementarity between them.
We also added as many conversations and reactions as possible whenever the two encounter something in the world. We constantly asked ourselves, "What would these two talk about if they discovered this together?" Our approach was heavily inspired by CrossCode.
We also reimagined many familiar RPG concepts. Equipment, for example, takes the form of cloaks. Throughout the adventure, players gather materials that Lune uses to weave new cloaks for Ave. Charms become embroidered patterns attached to those cloaks. Some embroideries aren't physical items at all—they're inspired by memorable moments during the journey. After returning to the sanctuary, Lune can transform those inspirations into new embroidery designs that grant a wide variety of enhancements.
Lunarium’s combat is built around controlling both swordplay and magic at the same time. How did you design encounters around this dual-character structure without overwhelming the player?
Jixiang: Our core philosophy was to make players feel as though they were controlling a single character—or at most, alternating naturally between two. We designed the two characters so their actions don't overlap, and we deliberately avoided mechanics that reward players for controlling both characters simultaneously.
This keeps the amount of input and information manageable, even during complex encounters. At the same time, players can still enjoy the feeling of the two characters fighting together while maintaining a clear understanding of the battlefield and making deliberate tactical decisions.
The pitch highlights precision-based combat, including parries, timed dodges, guard breaks, and spellcasting. How do animation, VFX, sound, camera behavior, and input timing work together to make those actions feel readable and satisfying?
Jixiang: To be honest, this wasn't an area where we had extensive prior experience. We learned mainly by carefully studying outstanding games made by developers we admire, then repeatedly testing, refining, and polishing every aspect until it felt right.
The team cites games such as Tunic and Death’s Door as inspirations. What did you learn from those games, and how did you make sure Lunarium developed its own identity rather than simply following the same isometric action-adventure template?
Jixiang: Visually, we chose a painterly art style that gives Lunarium a distinct identity compared to the low-poly stylized 3D or pixel art commonly seen in isometric action games.
From a gameplay perspective, our goal was to deliver some of the core combat experiences found in Souls-like games within a lighter, more approachable framework. As a result, our combat system offers greater depth than many games in the same genre while remaining accessible to a broader audience.
There is a striking contrast between Lunarium’s beautiful hand-drawn art and the harshness of its post-apocalyptic fantasy setting. How do you balance beauty, melancholy, danger, and mystery in the game’s visual language?
Jixiang: That really comes down to the artistic vision and experience of our art team. Thanks to our production pipeline, artists can treat each environment almost like a 2D painting, allowing them to fully express their artistic sensibilities, accumulated experience, and imagination when crafting the world.
What engine and tools are being used to build Lunarium, and were there any custom systems or workflows needed to support the hand-drawn assets, 2.5D perspective, animation, lighting, and combat?
Jixiang: Lunarium is built with Unity. We developed a custom workflow inside the engine that allows artists to create simple 3D geometry aligned with the game's camera perspective, overlay it onto hand-painted 2D artwork, and automatically generate camera-projected UVs. This enables artists to create environmental assets directly inside the engine without constantly switching to external software.
Because isometric action games depend heavily on clarity, how do you make sure enemies, hazards, interactable objects, paths, and attack telegraphs remain readable within such detailed artwork?
Jixiang: To improve combat readability, we added lock-on indicators and outline highlights to enemies that are the current focus of battle. Player characters are also among the few objects in the scene that use real-time 3D shadows, making them stand out more clearly against the environment. For particularly important incoming attacks, we still rely on traditional warning VFX to ensure players can recognize and react to threats in time.
For 80 Level’s audience of artists and developers, what has been the biggest challenge of building a debut title with such a distinct art style and combat identity, and what lessons has the team learned along the way?
Jixiang: The biggest challenge was simply attempting to build such a complex genre for our first project. Developing an action RPG means tackling almost every kind of design and technical challenge imaginable, and those challenges often intertwine, making the entire process even more complicated. In situations like this, experience becomes your most valuable asset. Since our team lacked that experience, the entire development journey was essentially one continuous challenge.
The biggest lesson we learned is to always make sure each stage of development is completed and thoroughly validated before moving on. Avoid expanding the project by continuously piling unfinished systems and designs on top of one another. Doing so greatly reduces the complexity of future development, and the process of fully completing each task provides an invaluable learning experience that makes every subsequent stage of production smoother and more efficient.
