Join Ripstone for a Fireside Chat into Unreal Development for Mobile! 

The Queen's Gambit Chess marked our Rockwater Development team's first foray into mobile game development.

This insightful discussion between Rockwater team members Jake Parrott (Senior Artist) and Paul Hughes (Head of Technology) covers both of their positive experiences of using Unreal Engine to bring The Queen's Gambit Chess to life on Android & iOS and how they used it to maintain the high bar of visual fidelity set by their previous console title, Chess Ultra.

Thinking of using Unreal Engine for mobile dev yourself? The two also delve into some of the art and tech tricks they learned along the way!

#thequeensgambit  #netflixgames  #unrealengine

Not one to be missed! 

We’re back with a special environment deep dive! This week Rockwater Artist, Tom Willcox, talks us through how he and the art team recreated a brand-new environment from the show; the immaculate Hotel de Ville in Paris.

How We Rebuilt Paris for Mobile

As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the challenge of adapting a Netflix show into a mobile game is no small feat! The process involves scaling down such detailed, iconic environments to be impactful on a screen that fits in the palm of your hand. The Parisian Hotel de Ville is one of those iconic environments! In this deep dive, we explore the meticulous work of bringing a set like this to life with insights from Rockwater Artist, Tom Willcox.

Getting Started With Scale

Where do you start with something like this? Research! 

"The first step, just like any other project, is to conduct a ton of reference gathering and research. Me and the team studied The Queen's Gambit's Paris scenes frame by frame, taking screenshots and collating it all in a mood board. My initial focus was to capture the scale of the room. Episode Six of The Queen’s Gambit has this great shot from the back of the room which I used as my main reference. I knew that if I could match the lens settings and the angle I could kind of gauge whether I was on the right track." - Tom Willcox

Once we had a rough idea of scale, I went back through and found shots where the room was busy, using people to further cement the scale of things. For example, the benches could fit three people, from that I can roughly tell the width. There’s a behind-the-scenes shot of someone standing by the chess display on the wall, making it possible to estimate the height of the board. We also found the filming location - the Haus Cumberland in Berlin, this helped to get those extra details.” - Tom Willcox

Capturing the Detail

With the scale established, Tom and the team then worked on putting together an all-encompassing asset list, ensuring absolutely no detail was overlooked. The goal was to capture all of the grandeur and elegance of Paris, all the while staying true to the show's unique aesthetic.

“I didn't want to misrepresent any detail. We made sure everything was as close to the reference material as possible - right down to replicating the score sheet books. Those details are what sell an environment for me - it’s what I look out for personally when I play games. It drives immersion." - Tom Willcox

Optimising the Art of The Queen’s Gambit Chess for Mobile

With the majority of their previous projects landing on PC and Console, the Rockwater art team have always set a high bar for the visual fidelity they wanted to achieve. When it came to working on mobile, they set out to do whatever they could to maintain that level. 

“From early on we knew the kind of limitations we were facing, since this had already been established from the previous environments. It was a whole host of compromises and optimisation to get the most out of as little as possible, but to me those challenges are fun and part of the process, they’re just puzzles that need to be solved." - Tom Willcox

To overcome these challenges, Tom and the art team made use of clever technical tricks that helped keep the fidelity up without impacting performance on mobiles with limited hardware capabilities:

“The environment was fully modular, which meant lots of repeating geometry, lots of reused textures, and fewer draw calls. I used trim sheets for the architecture, which helped to maintain the texel density throughout, as well as made for quick, iterative texturing. A lot of props shared texture sheets, I think they were all on two, which meant some strategically unwrapped and packed UVs; the Tetris of the game dev world.” - Tom Willcox 

The Deeper Details: Paris

As with all other The Queen’s Gambit Chess environments the devil is in the details. Tom took a closer look at various props within the environment. Each element was crucial in immersing players in the world of the show from the playing position.

"I think Paris in the show feels elegant, grand, and somewhat intimidating. I hope players get that same feeling from the playing position in our environment. As a fan of any TV show or film, having access to that third dimension in some form is exciting. I hope players enjoy that experience to get closer to the show.” - Tom Willcox 

Ensuring authenticity to the show's art style was a delicate balance. Tom and the art team performed early lighting passes and iterative texturing and ensured that the more vivid colour palette of the game always complemented the show's aesthetic.

“This was definitely a balancing act. It required early lighting passes, which were handled by Jake (Rockwater Senior Artist), in conjunction with iterative texturing. This ensured we correctly represented the show while complimenting the more stylized, vivid colour palette of the game. I also spent time bouncing around the existing levels  making sure our new environment remained grounded within the rest of the game..” - Tom Willcox

Tom's Journey As A Video Game Artist…So Far!

The Queen’s Gambit Chess marks both Tom’s and former Rockwater Artist Jack Shergold’s first experiences working on a published game! With this in mind, we asked Tom to shed some more light on his journey as a video game artist so far, exploring his insights into working within the Rockwater art team as well as his aspirations for the future.

This is your first work to feature in a published game, right? How does it feel knowing that your art is finally out there for the world to see on Netflix Games?!

"It’s honestly been a dream come true, which I am fully aware sounds majorly cheesy, but this has been my dream job for as long as I can recall. It feels incredibly surreal! It’s the understatement of the year to say that I'm honoured to have worked on an adaptation of such a beloved show.I fell in love with the artistic vision for The Queen’s Gambit; the locations, the era, the clothes. This was our team’s love letter to the show, so I wanted to do it proud. It was my first real endeavour for Rockwater, so I made it my personal goal to uphold the high standards Jake and Matt had already set across the other environments.”

Ripstone is your first role as an artist in the games industry, how has it been so far?

"I’ve loved it! It’s great having the freedom to try new things, and to be allowed and encouraged to explore. I’m still new to this industry but it’s such a huge thing that here I’m able to express an opinion or an idea and it’s always considered and valued. There have been occasions where I’ve suggested things - workflows or potential ideas - and the response has always been ‘Go for it, go try it out!’. We follow this mantra that it’s not wasted time if you learn something. Being a small team also allows me and other junior artists to be given creative control over an entire environment sometimes. It’s something I’m massively grateful for.”

What are you looking forward to going into 2024?

“I feel like a kid in a sweet shop every day! I love learning about every aspect of game art, from honing my modelling and texturing skills, lighting, composition and environment building, to technical art; like shader creation, or finding ways to optimise workflows. This is probably the broadest answer ever, but yeah, I’m a huge nerd for this stuff!”

Any tips for upcoming artists heading into their first industry roles? What do you wish you'd known going in?

"Absorb everything, and always be open to feedback. It’s an easy thing to say but not the easiest thing to implement. It can be easy to get attached to the things that we make, and be precious about them, but to grow you have to trust the process and the opinions of the team around you."

More From Ripstone’s ArtStation

Thanks again for joining us on the Ripstone ArtStation! If you've enjoyed this exploration of how our Rockwater Art Team recreated Paris’ Hotel de Ville for The Queen’s Gambit Chess, be sure to delve into our previous articles to discover more behind-the-scenes insights:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Methuen Home Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Crafting Beth Harmon - A Character Production Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Alma's House Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: How We Created The Game's Chess Sets
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Vegas Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Moscow Environment Deep Dive

HOTEL DE VILLE, PARIS CREDITS: 

Environment Work:
Tom Wilcox, Junior Artist

Jack Shergold, Junior Artist  

Lighting and Engine:
Jake Parrott, Senior Artist 

Additional Support:
Matt Beech, Senior Artist

This week on the Ripstone ArtStation Blog, we take a closer look at The Queen’s Gambit Chess’ two Moscow environments; Moscow Invitational and The Park.

How Our Rockwater Artists Remade The Show’s Two Moscow Settings

With its dramatic lighting, high ceilings and intimidating shadows, the Moscow Invitational Hall is one of the most iconic locations from The Queen’s Gambit miniseries. This incredible space is also the setting for Beth Harmon’s major triumph over Vasily Borgov in the final of the 1968 Moscow Invitational Tournament. Wanna know how we recreated it? Let me hand you over to the Rockwater Art Team!

“With our recreation of the Moscow Invitational environment, we aimed to capture the same daunting look and feel as the show. We spent a lot of time matching the lighting and those long shadows to reference shots. It was really important for us to give players that eerie feeling of being exposed and observed in such a foreboding hall.

I think we achieved this by pulling out all the stops to ensure we reproduced that grand sense of scale. With this being such a pivotal setting in the show, we wanted players to feel like Beth did. She’s sort of exhibited in this unfamiliar space, with her every move being scrutinised more than ever before.” - Jake Parrott, Rockwater Senior 3D Artist

Being one of the very few exterior chess-playing locations in The Queen’s Gambit series, our second Moscow environment, Moscow Park, was an opportunity for our art team to flex their expertise in different ways. 

Here, the team worked to create a unique and natural ambience. Lighting, again, was key as they utilised the brightness of the winter sun, all while being faithful to the overcast skies and biting cold of the show.

"This environment was one of the most challenging we tackled, as we had to bring an exterior scene with longer lines of sight to mobile devices." - Jake Parrott, Rockwater Senior 3D Artist


Finding a way to create a convincing depiction of Beth's vision was no mean feat. Across the rest of the game, the board is placed on a ceiling. Here, we found a nice way of working it into the clouds. 

The Details: Moscow

The deeper details really make the space sing. Let’s take a closer look at the aspects of the show our art team recreated in the game. 

The Playing Area - Moscow Invitational

Beth bests Borgov from a playing area at the centre of this hall, and our artists recreated almost everything that she would see; from the intricate marble floors to the dramatic chandeliers and uplights that work give the space its unmistakable atmosphere.

“Most of the drama of the show’s final episode takes place at the centre of this hall. We focused on bringing it to life in the game by replicating the lighting, the marble flooring and even the table itself using as much detail as we could.” - Jake Parrott, 3D Artist

The Playing Area - Moscow Park

The playing area of The Park environment is just as detailed in its representation of one of the key settings of the show. An example of this comes in the form of the wooden chessboard, which our art team realistically weathered to make it feel worn in and exposed to the elements.  

The 2D Board - Moscow Invitational

In the Moscow Invitational environment, if choosing to play using the 2D board, players will be treated to this impressive vertical chessboard.  

“This should be instantly familiar to fans of the show. The wall-mounted chessboard’s design is based on the giant boards that tournament officials use to keep the crowd informed of the moves Harmon and Borgov make.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Senior Artist

The 2D Board - Moscow Park

Up Next on Ripstone’s ArtStation

Thanks for taking a look at our deep dive into The Queen’s Gambit Chess' Moscow environments. Wanna find out more about the making of the game? Check out our previous articles including more behind-the-scenes insights:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Methuen Home Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Crafting Beth Harmon - A Character Production Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Alma's House Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: How We Created The Game's Chess Sets
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Vegas Environment Deep Dive

Coming up: an interview with Paul Hughes, Rockwater Head of Technology. We'll be exploring the relationship between Art and Programming and why we chose Unreal Engine to develop our game!

Welcome back to Ripstone's ArtStation Blog! This week we’re zooming in on the extravagant Mariposa Hotel in Vegas, and how Rockwater’s Art Team recreated it for The Queen’s Gambit Chess. 

How Rockwater's Artists Rebuilt the Mariposa Hotel

This Vegas hotel lobby hosts Beth’s first major tournament and is a true standout location from The Queen’s Gambit miniseries. Though Beth triumphs to eventually become the joint winner of the tournament, it is here that she experiences a first character-building defeat to Benny Watts. Here’s our Art team to explain how we did it! 

“The Mariposa Hotel lobby really is spectacular in the show. It’s probably the largest set in the series and really gets across that grandeur of Vegas in the 1960s. Our interpretation of that in the game had to be just as impactful.

With this space, our team put extra emphasis on capturing the scale of the lobby. In the finished environment, players experience not only the glamour of the Art Deco components but also the feeling of being dwarfed by the sheer size of the space. It’s the feeling we imagine Beth would have felt attending her first major tournament.” - Jake Parrott, Rockwater 3D Artist

The Details: Vegas

It’s all in the detail! Here are some of the things our Rockwater art team put strong emphasis on in the game version of Mariposa Hotel in order to match how it is represented in the TV series. 

The Chess Board

Like many other boards in the game, the ornate Hotel Mariposa chessboard is one that we caringly adapted from the show. 

“The glitz and glamour of Vegas can be found everywhere in the show’s Mariposa Hotel Scenes. Even the chessboard is extravagant. We knew we had to recreate this board in the game, and even made sure to feature the glimmering copper tabletops. Its subtle details like this that - when combined with the sheer size of the environment - should make the player feel like they’re playing in the same space that Beth did.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

Art Deco Features

The satisfying geometric lines and mix of man-made materials found in the Mariposa Hotel lobby come together to create an impressive Art Deco space. 

“We only had a single shot from the show to work from as a reference for this balcony view, so we took extra influence from famous Art Deco architecture such as the lobby of the Chrysler Building. In-game, the enormously high ceilings paired with those gold dice in the distance give a sense of the scale.” - Jake Parrott, Rockwater 3D Artist

At The Table Details

Iconic Gold Dice

Up Next on Ripstone’s ArtStation

Thanks for joining us on this whistlestop tour of one of The Queen’s Gambit Chess' iconic environments. Enjoyed it? You may also enjoy some of our previous articles including more behind-the-scenes insights:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Methuen Home Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Crafting Beth Harmon - A Character Production Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Alma's House Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: How We Created The Game's Chess Sets

Coming up: we'll be talking to Paul Hughes, Rockwater Head of Technology, to explore the relationship between Art and Programming and why we chose Unreal Engine to develop our game!

We’re back! This week we’re zooming in on the many spectacular chess sets of The Queen’s Gambit series and detailing how the Rockwater Art Team adapted them for our game. 

After all, a chess game is only ever as good-looking as its chess sets! Once they had established the game’s period environments, our teams set out to faithfully adapt the show's many timeless chess sets for players to experience for themselves in The Queen’s Gambit Chess. 

How We Adapted Chess Sets for The Queen’s Gambit Chess

At launch, the game features 7 sets, each of which with 4 material variations for players to unlock and customise themselves as they progress through Beth’s Journey. Let’s explore our team’s inspirations and the decisions that went into creating these sets for the game! 

Initial Inspiration: Studying The Queen’s Gambit

As with the environments, our recreation of The Queen’s Gambit’s chess sets began with our Rockwater artists studiously watching the show's chess scenes to capture screenshots to analyse.

In many cases, our teams also had access to Netflix’s behind-the-scenes shots that massively helped us in making our sets as close as possible to those seen in the show.

Additional Research

Once we’d identified the exact chess sets featured in the show, our artists would then conduct additional research, scouring the web for unseen angles and close-ups to help make their in-game adaptations as close to the original as possible. 

In some instances, however, detailed reference material was simply not available. Here, we had to get creative. A good example of this is the ‘Park’ chess set which, within the context of the show, appeared to be a mishmash of many sets used in a public place. Knowing this, our artists ensured that every single piece felt worn - no piece was the same. 

The Process

Upon completing their research, our artists set to work, using images gathered as a jumping-off point to create the optimised 3D meshes that would eventually be used in the game. All of these meshes remain faithful to the show, with our Artists using a plethora of tools including 3ds Max and Maya.

Once these initial meshes were complete, a lot of time and effort were put in to refine them further into high-detail meshes. It is this step that allowed us to include lots of little details and add tonnes of character into the sets, all while being able to hit performance targets for mobile.

Then, our Rockwater artists would bake high-poly detail onto the game meshes and create richly detailed textures and materials all within Adobe Substance Painter. This is where we’d also look into alternate looks for each set, always ensuring that they remained true to the wider art style of the game. Every set had to look relatively at home in every environment.

The final step involved importing the more-or-less finished set into the project and making minor tweaks inside the Unreal Editor to ensure it melded perfectly within the game world.

A Closer Look at the Chess Sets from TQGC

Lardy

Latvian

Liberty

“I’m really pleased with how the Liberty set turned out. It really evokes that 50's Americana vibe. It’s a great fit for Alma’s house.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

Park

“We couldn’t find enough reference material to create an exact match here, so we used a mixture of show screenshots and inspiration from 1950s Russian sets - it works really well within the scene. Each of the material variants, even the hard-wearing plastic pieces, have been worn in through years of use.” - Matt Beech Rockwater Artist

Staunton

“No chess game is complete without a classic Staunton-inspired set. I love the variety of the material options that players can unlock.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

Vegas

Williams

“With the Williams set, we wanted to create something to reflect that funky 60's vibe that Beth brings to the decor of her new home - it’s a little out there compared to the others, but it works!” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

Up Next on Ripstone’s ArtStation

As always, we’d like to thank you for joining us on the Ripstone ArtStation! If you've enjoyed this look at the methods we used to create the chess sets of The Queen’s Gambit Chess, you may also enjoy some of our previous articles including more deep dives and behind-the-scenes insights:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Methuen Home Environment Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Crafting Beth Harmon - A Character Production Deep Dive
  
  
• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Alma's House Environment Deep Dive

Mark your calendars - next week we’re heading to Vegas to explore one of the most extravagant environments in the game!

We’re back with our latest production process blog! This week, the Rockwater Art Team detail how they recreated Alma’s House for The Queen’s Gambit Chess!

Rebuilding Alma’s Home for Mobile

Alma’s living room is a pivotal interior in the show. It plays a huge role in shaping Beth on her journey to the very top of international chess. With its unmistakably mid-century decor, we consider it one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable sets in the series. For our Rockwater Art Team, it was absolutely paramount that we recreated it faithfully for mobile.

We decided to recreate this space home for the game as it was when we first meet Alma in the show; a pristine space that screams the early 1960s American Dream. 

“Production designer Uli Hanisch’s work made redesigning Alma’s Home for the game a real treat for our art team. In the series, this interior set is incredibly detailed and uses a tonne of mid-century pieces to perfectly capture that moment in time.

Our team studied it frame-by-frame in order to recreate it as faithfully as we possibly could. It was important to us that players experienced being immersed in this space - one that becomes pivotal to Beth’s upbringing.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

The Details: Bringing Alma’s Home to Life

Our Rockwater artists wanted to build in as much detail as they could to ensure that the space felt truly lived in. Here’s a closer look at some of the aspects of the art direction that make the game version of Alma’s Lounge feel just like its TV counterpart. 

The Chessboard

The chessboard found here is a replica of the very one Beth uses early on in the show. It’s balanced delicately on the sofa, supported and levelled by some of her many books on chess theory.

This is the player’s perspective of the environment. As mentioned in a previous blog, ensuring a high level of visual fidelity here, while keeping other areas lean was key in hitting performance targets and fighting against the limitations of low-end mobile hardware. 

“Wherever we can, we have used reference shots and set photos to recreate props using as much detail as possible. In this environment, the placement of the chessboard was key. It’s the exact board she uses, propped up on the chess books she studies. Once she settles in, Alma’s living room is this rare place where Beth feels most comfortable and at home. We wanted to reflect that comfort with the playing position.” - Matt Beech, Rockwater Artist

Mid-century Design Features

From the grand emerald green couch to the art deco mantlepiece, Alma’s living room is full to the brim with extravagant mid-century furnishings.

The outside world seen through the window here is another clever trick we used to keep performance impact low. The view beyond the window is faked using pixel depth offset. 

“Our aim was to try and achieve what the show did and ensure that players were immersed in The Queen’s Gambit world at every turn. Everything in this room, from the TV trolley to that incredible piano, was carefully modelled to create that immersive experience.” - Jake Parrott, Rockwater 3D Artist

We carefully placed little nods to the wider narrative of the show wherever we could, so long as they supported that immersion. Here, a copy of Chess Focus features Benny Watts; his star is rising. 

Up Next on Ripstone's ArtStation

Thanks again for joining us on the Ripstone ArtStation! Itchin' for more insight into how we translated The Queen's Gambit Chess to Android & iOS? Take a look at some of our previous articles to discover more:

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Character Overview

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Environment Overview

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Dan Eder Q&A

• The Queen's Gambit Chess: Methuen Home Environment Deep Dive

• The Queen’s Gambit Chess: Crafting Beth Harmon - A Character Production Deep Dive
  
  

Next week we’ll be zooming in on what makes each and every one of the game's many chessboards unique! 

The stunningly realised period locations of The Queen’s Gambit represent a significant part of what made the show so special. In this ArtStation deep dive, we reveal how our Rockwater Art Team brought them to mobile in The Queen’s Gambit Chess.  

Spanning a plethora of interesting settings, from grungy janitor basements and pristine 60s homes to flashy Vegas hotels and grand Moscow halls, The Queen’s Gambit’s environments were a real joy for our art team to recreate. 

This week, we’ll be giving you an ArtStation-exclusive overview of these memorable locations as well as a look into some of the unique challenges that were presented by them as we adapted them for our mobile game.

Making a Faithful Adaptation

With the show rightfully being adored so widely, we knew that faithfully recreating the locations for the game was critical. At the same time, we had to take into account the fact that our game’s environments had to be able to run smoothly on both high-end hardware and budget smartphones. 

So, where do you start? 

The key for us was having a great partner. Netflix went to great lengths to ensure that masses of behind-the-scenes and continuity photography were available to our team, along with a whole heap of insight into the creation of these locations. 

At the beginning of the project and then throughout, our teams immersed themselves in every detail! An example of the lengths we went to comes in the fact that every chess clock from each location in the show was fully recreated for the game. They also function in exactly the same way as their on-screen counterparts. Timers will switch as players take turns, and keen-eyed players will even notice the flag falling if your timer runs out. 

Silver Screen to Mobile: Finding Our Art Style

For our initial pitch, we created an incredibly detailed render that we placed side-by-side with shots from the show. While this was accurate, it immediately became clear that the lighter tone of the game and its target platforms would require us to go on a journey of discovery to find a unique art style.

Similar to the way in which we approached adapting characters, in the initial stages we openly explored several directions, always making decisions together as a team to keep consistency between iterations. 

With the bright and inviting character direction already established, we eventually decided to adapt our environments and lighting to reflect this. We ramped up the saturation and, in many cases, the contrast was increased to provide more punch and legibility on smaller mobile screens.

The one area which broke this new rule was the ‘gameplay lighting’; the lighting of the 2D and 3D chess boards and their immediate surroundings. For these cases, we kept contrast at a low level to promote maximum readability of the state of play. After all, if you can’t clearly read the board from all angles, you haven’t got a good chess game!

Bringing Console-Quality Visuals to Mobile

The biggest challenge for us was keeping the visual fidelity up while developing for a vast array of different mobile hardware. To achieve this, we kept close control of detail based on player sight lines and radially out from the playable locations. The same was true of materials.

When it came to lighting, the backgrounds were baked with real-time lighting reserved for those showstopping key gameplay areas. 

Through our background in chess games, we also learned that experienced chess players prefer a 2D view, so all locations had to accommodate both a 2D and a 3D chess board, with the player having the option to switch between them on the fly.

We didn’t want to have our 2D boards as a generic, static top-down view. We felt it would really break the immersion of the setting but also would not be in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the show.

Instead, we created bespoke options that exist within each environment. From the weathered chalkboard found in Mr. Shaibel’s basement to the glitzy illuminated wallboard found in Vegas, even hardcore chess players can play with their preferred view without ever being taken out of The Queen’s Gambit’s aesthetically beautiful and fully-realised world.

It also led to us finding creative ways to add additional elements and easter eggs for fans, such as this chess magazine featuring Benny sitting on the table in Alma’s house.

Accommodating Beth’s Vision!

Those who have watched the show will be aware of Beth’s iconic superpower of visualising potential chess moves on the ceiling. In The Queen’s Gambit Chess, players can feel this superpower for themselves, we call this ‘Beth’s Vision’. 

All environments had to support the use of this feature! But it’s surprisingly tricky technically to replicate an entire functional board on the ceiling of an environment. 

With the help of our incredible tech team, we accomplished this by creating an entirely separate area within the scene complete with a variant lighting rig. This was then flipped vertically and set up to run our chess engine, and finally flipped back again in the code so that the view the user sees appears to be the ceiling. 

In the game, when you use this ability you are actually seeing our chess engine evaluating hundreds of potential moves in real-time and displaying some of the most likely choices before giving the user the best move it can calculate! 

Up Next on Ripstone ArtStation!

Thanks for stopping by our overview of the environments of The Queen’s Gambit Chess, we really hope you enjoyed it! In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into some environments individually. 

Next week, we’ll be chatting with Dan Eder, the accomplished Lead Character Artist whose Beth Harmon design inspired us! 

The Queen’s Gambit is a show known for its cast of iconic, memorable characters, each with their own equally iconic look. In the first in a series of ArtStation deep dives, we reveal how our Rockwater Art Team adapted them for The Queen’s Gambit Chess.  

From the endlessly enthralling Beth Harmon and her mentor Mr Shaibel to the charismatic Benny Watts and the intimidating Vasili Borgov, it is these characters that form the focus of our first in-depth article revealing how key parts of the game were developed.

Defining Character Art Style

At the beginning of the project, it became immediately apparent to us that we had to find a way to create an art style that managed to remain true to the much-loved hit show, but also felt appropriate for the lighter tone of our mobile game.

The key to this was Beth Harmon.

In the show, Beth is a multi-faceted personality whose softer side shines through in the quiet, intimate moments she shares with friends such as Jolene. We decided that finding a way to capture this side of Beth was a great place for us to start.

In The Queen’s Gambit Chess, Beth takes on the role of mentor and companion on the player's own journey from Novice to Borgov-smashing chess master! 

Knowing this, we made a conscious effort to her character’s design as approachable and welcoming as possible all while remaining true to her silver-screen counterpart.

In addition to ensuring our designs remained true to the show, our art team also had to take the limitations of the mobile platform into consideration and ensure that our character designs were effective on both high-end hardware and budget smartphones.

Let's dig into a bit more detail!

Rockwater's Character Design Process

At Rockwater, we began by creating what our teammates affectionately dubbed our ‘Wall of Beths’. 

This vast collage took up a 10x10ft wall in the art department and featured dozens of pieces of art and press photos of the show’s protagonist. We were careful to include a wide variety of options, of varying degrees of approachability and realism.

It took little time for us to refine this huge wall down into a smaller area with a reduced range of styles. This quickly aligned us all on where we felt the character style ‘belonged’.

Then came the tricky bit! We started a very painstaking process of narrowing down to an even smaller line-up of options that could all feasibly fit the tone of the game that we had in mind.

During this process, you might find one super specific element that you admire from one style but not another. This phase is all about combining them in different ways and iterating till you find the best mix.

It’s tough picking your next move, but don’t be disheartened. The more difficult it gets, the closer you are to finding the perfect fit!

Collaborating with Dan Eder

Of the countless iterations on our 'Wall of Beths', we kept coming back to a piece of impressive 3D concept art from Dan Eder; an acclaimed character artist whose work you can find here on ArtStation.

Naturally, we got in touch to collaborate with Dan, the original artist whose exceptional art had turned so many heads. His design quickly became a firm favourite and, once we'd shared it amongst the team, everyone at Rockwater and Netflix rallied behind this choice.

Rockwater's art department has a passion for working to raise the bar of what it can achieve, but never at the expense of other artists and their artwork. We feel very strongly that all artists in the industry should be recognised for their talent and passion. They should never be plagiarised or shut down. 

We'll be covering the ins and outs of our collaboration with Dan in an interview in the coming weeks!

Refining Our Character Designs

We'd arrived at a style we were all excited by! We referred to this style as ‘Open Face’.

Through team discussion and input from Dan Eder on his stylistic inspirations, we settled on the distinguishing features of this style.

A 'The Queen's Gambit Chess' Character should... 

• Be lightly caricatured but not overly distorted from reality
• Feature soft planarization of the hair and facial features but with no harsh creasing 
• Have reduced facial complexity to promote readability
• Make use of soft shading of the skin

With this set of 'rules', our team now had a style that we could express and apply to different characters. However, there were still a lot of variables that could lead to unique styles and inconsistencies within this range.

It was at this point, that we collaborated closely with Netflix on several rounds of consumer testing to get the Audience's views on what was most appropriate for the tone of the game. As creatives, it's important to always remember that we aren’t simply making games for ourselves. There is always massive value in checking your feelings to see if they align, not only with your teammates but with the people who will actually be playing the game.

We also considered a huge amount of data from The Queen's Gambit fans, hardcore chess players, gamers, non-gamers etc. 

Data like this can’t drive creativity, but it can prevent you from getting stuck down creative cul-de-sacs. 

Netflix and their consumer insights really delivered here. They came back with two clear front runners. One of which was our favourite, inspired by Dan Eder's initial designs!

Bringing A Cast of Characters to Life

Although Beth is, quite literally, the poster character for The Queen's Gambit we put just as much effort into assembling a fully-realised cast of other opponents from the show, all of which bring their unique character to the game. 

From their animated physical models and emotional reactions to the impressive skills they display on the chessboard, we applied everything we learned through the collaborative process of creating Beth. 

We couldn't resist capturing more of the incredible costume design of the show, so you'll find some iconic variants of Beth representing the many stages of her journey.

Up Next on Ripstone's ArtStation!

We hope you’ve enjoyed your introduction to the character design of The Queen's Gambit Chess and your first taste of the Ripstone ArtStation blog.

We have only scratched the surface! Stay tuned for our upcoming deep dives into specific characters and insightful interviews with key players such as Character Artist Dan Eder. 

Next week, we'll be starting a journey into the incredible world of The Queen's Gambit, with an overview article on the environments of The Queen's Gambit Chess.