Ludo Asset Prompts¶

Purpose¶

This page stores the reusable prompts for visual asset generation so art direction changes do not get lost in chat history.

Use this file as the canonical prompt library for early Unity placeholder and pre-production assets.

When a prompt changes, update it here instead of leaving the latest version only in conversation.

Current Visual Direction¶

EchoSpire should read as cathedral sci-fi rather than generic fantasy or generic cyberpunk.

The visual tone should combine:

sacred architecture
ritual machinery
fractured reality seams
faction-specific symbolic language
readable 2D game silhouettes

The early Unity client is currently targeting 2D presentation, so these prompts should optimize for layered 2D assets, readable UI integration, and strong silhouettes.

Prompt Writing Rules¶

Each prompt should aim for:

strong silhouette readability at game UI scale
no embedded text unless explicitly requested
consistent faction identity
restrained detail density so the UI remains readable
layered output that can survive cropping or re-framing

Whenever possible, request:

transparent background for icons, crests, portraits, and UI pieces
centered composition for reusable UI assets
clean edges and limited visual noise

Asset Batch 1: Title Screen Backdrop¶

Use¶

Main menu or login screen background for the first Unity slice.

Prompt¶

Create a 2D painted game title-screen background for a cathedral sci-fi roguelike called EchoSpire. Show a colossal fractured spire rising through a dark storm of shattered reality seams, with floating stone-work, ritual machinery, distant lantern light, and subtle portal tears. The mood is solemn, mysterious, and high-stakes rather than horror. Composition should leave clean negative space for menu UI in the center-left or lower-center area. No characters, no text, no logo, no watermark. Readable at desktop game-menu scale. Stylized premium game art, not photoreal.

Output Notes¶

landscape orientation
keep UI-safe empty space
avoid over-busy clouds or tiny architectural clutter

Asset Batch 2: Faction Crests¶

Use¶

Faction selection, hero list badges, and menu identity markers.

Shared Prompt Base¶

Create a clean 2D game faction crest with transparent background for a cathedral sci-fi roguelike. The emblem should feel ceremonial, iconic, and readable at small UI size. Use bold silhouette, minimal clutter, polished line work, and a premium strategy-RPG interface feel. No text, no banner lettering, no watermark.

Valerii Prompt Add-On¶

Theme: militant oath-bound guardians, iron devotion, defensive honor, fortress discipline. Use steel, ash, muted crimson, and solemn gold accents. Shapes should suggest shieldwork, oaths, and bastion architecture.

Syntacta Prompt Add-On¶

Theme: calculation, calibration, machine liturgy, predictive order. Use pale cyan, white metal, graphite, and controlled signal light. Shapes should suggest lenses, diagrams, tuning forks, and precise radial geometry.

Aethari Prompt Add-On¶

Theme: gilded ambition, sacred wealth, refinement, power through crafted brilliance. Use warm gold, ivory, lacquer black, and ember accents. Shapes should suggest crucibles, crowns, coin-suns, and ceremonial metallurgy.

Annalis Prompt Add-On¶

Theme: memory, archives, witness, living records, sacred bureaucracy. Use parchment ivory, cool brass, ink black, and faded blue-gray. Shapes should suggest seals, tablets, keys, record rings, and indexed symmetry.

Salvari Prompt Add-On¶

Theme: maintenance, survival, field repair, stubborn labor, practical devotion. Use worn green, brass, oil-dark gray, and work-light amber. Shapes should suggest tools, hinges, braces, repair sigils, and rugged reliability.

Output Notes¶

transparent background
square composition
one strong emblem only
readable at icon scale

Asset Batch 3: Class Selection Panels¶

Use¶

Selectable class cards or buttons in hero creation flow.

Prompt¶

Create a set of 2D UI class-selection panels for a cathedral sci-fi roguelike. Each panel should be vertically oriented and feel like a ceremonial dossier card with beveled metal frame, sacred-tech ornament, restrained glow accents, and a clear central area for portrait or icon placement. The style should feel premium, readable, and game-ready rather than generic mobile fantasy. No text, no watermark, no embedded labels. Keep silhouettes and framing consistent across the set.

Output Notes¶

vertical card aspect ratio
transparent or simple isolated background
leave space for later text overlays in Unity

Asset Batch 4: Hero Portrait Placeholder System¶

Use¶

Hero list, hero detail, and profile portrait placeholders before full character art production.

Prompt¶

Create a stylized 2D character portrait placeholder for a cathedral sci-fi roguelike hero creator. Show a bust portrait silhouette framed by ritual-tech ornament and faction-coded color accents. The portrait should feel like an in-world dossier image, readable in a game UI, and suitable for multiple later variations. No text, no watermark, no busy background. Clean portrait framing, premium game UI quality, strong silhouette.

Variation Notes¶

create faction-coded variants using each faction palette
keep the portrait area consistent so later revisions can swap in bespoke characters
prefer neutral facial detail if the output needs to remain reusable

Asset Batch 5: UI Kit Foundation¶

Use¶

Title screen, login, hero list, faction selection, and class selection interface.

Prompt¶

Create a 2D UI kit for a cathedral sci-fi roguelike game interface. Include modular panels, buttons, dividers, portrait frames, badge holders, and subtle icon containers. The style should combine sacred architecture and machine precision, with carved metal, disciplined ornament, restrained glow, and high readability. The interface should feel premium PC strategy-RPG, not casual mobile, not generic fantasy. No text, no watermark. Favor clean separations, reusable shapes, and consistent visual language.

Output Notes¶

prefer transparent backgrounds for reusable elements
keep contrast strong enough for dark and mid-tone backdrops
avoid tiny decorative noise that will vanish at UI scale

Ludo Clarification Pack¶

Use the guidance below when a visual tool asks for more specific art direction than the current batch prompts provide.

Faction Visual Language¶

Valerii¶

Palette: steel gray, ash white, muted crimson, solemn gold
Motifs: shield forms, bastion arches, layered plates, lock-bars, oath rings
Sigil direction: a fortress shield or gate-seal with a central vertical lock element; ceremonial, defensive, and severe rather than royal

Syntacta¶

Palette: pale cyan, white metal, graphite, thin signal-light blue
Motifs: precise radial diagrams, lenses, concentric circles, calibration marks, tuning-fork symmetry
Sigil direction: a machine liturgy emblem built from a central lens or aperture with exact radial geometry; elegant, abstract, and mathematically clean

Aethari¶

Palette: warm gold, ivory, lacquer black, ember orange
Motifs: crucibles, coin-suns, crowns, alchemical vessels, fluid ornamental curves contained by luxury metalwork
Sigil direction: a gilded crucible-crown or sun-coin emblem that reads as wealth weaponized into sacred industry

Annalis¶

Palette: parchment ivory, cool brass, ink black, faded blue-gray
Motifs: tablets, key-shapes, seal circles, archive clasps, indexed symmetry, judicial geometry
Sigil direction: a record seal built from a key and ring-tablet motif; authoritative, archival, and bureaucratically sacred

Salvari¶

Palette: worn green, brass, oil-dark gray, work-light amber
Motifs: braces, hinges, repair clamps, tool silhouettes, field patches, practical latticework
Sigil direction: a repair-mark crest built from crossed maintenance forms inside a rugged brace or hinge ring; trustworthy through use rather than prestige

Hero And Class Silhouette Rules¶

Classes should read first through silhouette, then through faction ornament.

Anchor¶

Role read: defensive mass tank
Silhouette: broad shoulders, low center of gravity, dense plate or ballast harness, tower-shield or heavy forearm barrier, visible weight and inertia
Equipment direction: slab shield, anchor plates, ballast canisters, drag-chains, mass vents, reinforced greaves
Scale: still human-sized, but visually the heaviest class; should read like a walking bulwark rather than a mech

Drifter¶

Role read: precision assassin
Silhouette: narrow profile, long coat-panels or split cloak, asymmetrical blades or compact pistols, poised forward motion
Equipment direction: light dueling kit, echo markers, hooked blades, timing instruments, stealth rigging
Scale: human-sized and agile

Conduit¶

Role read: high-risk caster
Silhouette: upright caster-engineer with arc coils, cable halos, exposed conduits, and unstable energy housings
Equipment direction: staff-surrogate emitters, reactor gloves, back-mounted coils, capacitor rings
Scale: human-sized with a larger energy footprint than body mass

Machinist¶

Role read: combat engineer and board controller
Silhouette: mid-weight engineer with tool harness, deployable drones, backpack frame, articulated arms, and visible construct capsules or foldout rigging
Equipment direction: fabrication pack, repair armatures, deployable sentries, relay pylons, welding or diagnostic tools
Scale: human-sized; the visual mass comes from gear and accompanying constructs, not personal bulk

Catalyst¶

Role read: unstable tempo manipulator
Silhouette: elegant but dangerous alchemical operator with flowing sleeves, containment vials, mutation apparatus, and asymmetrical transformed details
Equipment direction: reagent canisters, catalyst rods, alchemical masks, volatile injectors, mutation lattices
Scale: human-sized with the least stable outline; slight body or gear asymmetry is desirable

Card And UI Design Direction¶

Card Anatomy¶

Top-left: cost gem or plate
Top-center: card name bar
Center: main illustrated art window
Bottom third: rules text panel
Bottom edge: faction/class accent strip and keyword icon row
Corners: rarity or upgrade pips only if needed later; keep early placeholders clean

Frame Style¶

Base frame language: cathedral sci-fi dossier card, not fantasy parchment and not pure hologram
Primary material read: carved metal, sacred paneling, inset glass, restrained glow seams
Faction variation: each faction gets different accent trims and motif engraving, but all cards still belong to one unified game
Class/resource widgets should feel machine-authored and readable, not hand-drawn tarot

Iconography¶

Density: stacked weight bars, ballast plates, or a compact mass-glyph; heavy, square, compressed
Overload: split energy ring, overloaded coil, or cracked capacitor symbol; bright and unstable
Echo-Lock: target reticle with incomplete concentric rings or a precision mark closing toward a threshold
Constructs: modular node or drone-frame glyph
Mutation/Anomaly: controlled fracture spiral or unstable reagent bloom

Reality Bleed Direction¶

The Reality Bleed should not read as generic purple magic fog or simple cyber glitch.

Preferred visual treatment:

physical reality-shear first: broken architectural alignment, doubled edges, impossible seams, suspended shards, and offset geometry
secondary light behavior: cyan-white seam light, ember bleed, and thin spectral color splitting rather than one dominant fantasy hue
texture language: cracked glass, parallax misregistration, layered timelines, torn material planes, and exposed machine strata
mood: awe and danger, not slime, smoke, or haunted-mist horror

Perspective Rule¶

The preferred gameplay perspective is top-down 3/4 with a slight isometric lean.

not true 90-degree overhead
not full diamond isometric
closest references are readable action-strategy camera angles where characters still have clear front-facing silhouette information
environment art should support combat readability first and atmosphere second

Enemy Visual Direction¶

Rival Heroes¶

Rival Heroes should be distinct faction champions, not dark mirror clones of the player
They should share the same class silhouette language as heroes, but with more hostile specialization, clearer faction propaganda, and elite encounter presentation
A rival should look like an enemy doctrine made personal

Engine Horrors And Anomaly Creatures¶

Preferred source look: machine-scar and conceptual-failure entities born from broken reality infrastructure
Visual ingredients: liturgical machinery, partial humanoid anatomy, maintenance frames, impossible joints, archive debris, and fractured geometry
Avoid generic demons, zombies, or tentacle sludge unless a specific realm justifies it
The strongest designs should feel like reality was misfiled, half-repaired, or forced to continue functioning in the wrong shape

Revision Log Rule¶

When a prompt is tuned for better output, keep the old intent but replace the prompt text here with the new approved version.

If a prompt split becomes necessary, create a new section rather than letting one prompt try to serve incompatible goals.