From the Beauty of Battle – Art and Design of Tribal Wars 2

Today InnoGames released additional information on the art and graphics of its online strategy game Tribal Wars 2. The game significantly overhauls the visual look of its predecessor, Tribal Wars, yet aims at finding a balance between classical and modern visuals. The gorgeous buildings in the city overview were all hand-drawn first and took about one month each to be finished, as lead graphic artist Tobias Dunz explains in a new video on the game’s visuals.

Aside from the attention to detail on troops and buildings, creating an updated yet familiar interface on all playable devices, including smartphones and tablets, were among the key tasks for the graphic team: “We had to experiment and iterate a lot, before we found a way that was visually pleasing as well as functional”, says Dunz. “Very often we tried something and then realized, it wouldn’t work for mobile devices, and then we had to start over, to find a more appropriate solution.” Dunz, who was also in charge of creating Forge of Empires’ visual style previously, points out that Tribal Wars 2’s level of detail is unmatched by most modern browser games: “Each building we have in Tribal Wars 2 is almost 4 times as detailed as anything we have done so far. And not only the user interface, but also the visuals of the game world are optimized for mobile and high-resolution devices” the graphic artist explains. Those adjustments will be especially noticeable on Apple’s Retina devices and comparable Android tablets, adds Dunz.