The Devil’s Den was a game development project that began its life in early 2000 on the now defunct SEGA Dreamcast console. It was being developed by small indie developer Pagan Games using the 3rd party Kallisti-OS SDK with me serving as lead artist on the project.
The game was based on the popular 80s young adult fiction novel “Djævelens Hule” by Danish author Dennis Jürgensen with official blessings from the book’s publisher, Tellerup.
The book is set in a dystopian future society in which video games are outlawed and any person caught possessing or playing them is ruthlessly hunted down by a heavy-handed government agency. The story chronicles the last stand of a small band of gaming kids who get sealed in an underground arcade. Here they are left to play for their lives, as the only way to keep oxygen flowing is to keep playing The Devil’s Den – a legendarily tough shoot ’em up game – to which the ventilation system is hooked up.
The game sadly got cancelled early in production due to funding issues.
Below are some examples of character designs and art assets I created.
Above: Character sketch of The Twins – a couple of the story’s protagonists involved in the gaming underground.
Above: Character sketch for a government agent, colloquially referred to as “Sortfrakker” (“Black Jackets”) among the youth.
Above: Character sketch for Taus – one of the protagonists in the rag-tag group of kids hiding out in the underground arcade.
Above: The game was to have two concurrent worlds – the real world in which the kids were being hunted and are fending for their lives, and the game world taking place in The Devil’s Den. Above are sprite tests for the ship in The Devil’s Den arcade game.
Above: A tilesheet containing a bunch of background buildings for the shoot ’em up portion of the game.