The Art of the Mystery: How SFB Games Evolved the 2D Aesthetic from Flash Roots to "The Mermaid Mask"

The history of video games is frequently written as a linear march of technological progress. In this conventional narrative, the medium’s evolution is defined by transition: moving from the flat, low-resolution 2D sprites of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras to the hyper-realistic, ray-traced 3D environments of modern consoles. However, this perspective overlooks the artistic vitality of 2D art. Far from a dead end or a mere vehicle for retro nostalgia, two-dimensional illustration in games continues to grow, shift, and mature. This evolution is driven not by processing power, but by the developing tastes, cinematic influences, and collaborative experiences of the artists themselves.

A prime example of this artistic journey is the career of Adam Vian, Creative Director and co-founder of SFB Games. Alongside his brother Tom, Vian has spent more than two decades designing, illustrating, and animating games. From their teenage years publishing freeware on browser-based portals to collaborating with industry giants like Nintendo and Apple, the Vians have witnessed the transformation of the digital art landscape firsthand.

With the release of The Mermaid Mask—the fourth installment in their acclaimed Detective Grimoire murder-mystery series—SFB Games has demonstrated how a hand-drawn aesthetic can remain cutting-edge. By blending traditional character design with innovative 3D rendering pipelines, the studio proves that 2D art is an evolving frontier.

Main Facts

At the core of SFB Games’ artistic philosophy is the belief that visual limitations can foster iconic design. The studio’s signature intellectual property, the Detective Grimoire series, serves as a living canvas documenting this evolution.

• The Studio: Founded by brothers Adam and Tom Vian, SFB Games began as the "Super Flash Bros" during the golden era of web-based animation. They have since transitioned into a multi-platform indie studio, earning critical acclaim and collaborating with major industry platforms including Nintendo (most notably on the Switch launch title Snipperclips) and Apple.
• The Franchise: Detective Grimoire is a point-and-click murder-mystery adventure series. Heavily inspired by Capcom’s Ace Attorney franchise and classic LucasArts adventure titles, the series follows an eccentric, slightly goofy detective as he solves bizarre crimes in highly stylized locales.
• The Evolution: Over its four-entry history, the series has undergone dramatic visual overhauls. What began as a basic, flat cartoon style drawn by a teenager has transformed into a rich, painterly world that blends 2D character animation with stylized 3D environment assets.
• The Newest Release: The Mermaid Mask marks the fourth outing for Detective Grimoire and his cynical co-star, Sally Spears. Published on PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, the game represents the first time SFB Games has built directly upon the engine and art style of a predecessor (Tangle Tower) rather than starting from scratch, allowing the team to refine rather than reinvent.

Chronology

The visual identity of SFB Games was not formed in a vacuum; it was forged through twenty years of rapid experimentation, academic training, and technological transitions.

[Early 2000s] Super Flash Bros on Newgrounds (Fast-paced Flash game development)
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[2007] Launch of the original "Detective Grimoire" (Flash-based web game)
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[2007-2010] Adam Vian attends Art School (UCA) (Exposed to classical illustration & cinema)
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[2014] "Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp" (First major visual reboot; Catherine Unger joins)
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[2019] "Tangle Tower" (Introduction of softer, "blobby" shapes and vibrant color palettes)
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[2024] "The Mermaid Mask" (Integration of stylized 3D clues and dynamic outline shaders)

The Early 2000s: The Newgrounds and Flash Era

Adam and Tom Vian began their game development careers as teenagers, operating under the moniker "Super Flash Bros." Their playground was Newgrounds, a pioneering web portal where creators could upload Adobe Flash games and animations instantly.

During this period, internet copyright enforcement was virtually non-existent, allowing the brothers to create fan games and parodies using copyrighted characters and music. Their first functional game, Kirby’s Star Scramble, was born out of convenience—Kirby was simple to draw. This era was characterized by an incredibly rapid development cycle. The brothers routinely designed, programmed, animated, and released games within a single week, utilizing a tight feedback loop of instant player reviews to discard weak concepts and hone their design instincts.

2007: The Debut of Detective Grimoire

Inspired by Capcom’s Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and classic point-and-click games like The Secret of Monkey Island, the Vians decided to create their own mystery game. At just 17 years old, Adam designed the titular Detective Grimoire.

The original design was simple: a generic protagonist clad in a brown trench coat with brown hair, heavily channeling archetypes like Guybrush Threepwood and Ace Attorney’s Detective Gumshoe. The game was released as a free Flash-based web title, establishing the core mechanics of interviewing wacky suspects and searching backgrounds for clues.

2007–2010: The Art School Transformation

Following the release of the first game, Adam enrolled at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), studying illustration and animation. This academic environment exposed him to classical art theories, legendary animators, and peer feedback. It was during this period that he met Catherine Unger, a talented artist who would become a permanent fixture at SFB Games, serving as the lead background artist and visual sounding board for all subsequent Grimoire titles.

2014: Secret of the Swamp and the First Visual Reboot

With the release of Detective Grimoire: Secret of the Swamp, the series transitioned from a free web game to a commercial, high-definition release. Armed with art school training and Catherine Unger’s background paintings, Adam completely overhauled the character designs.

Suspects were designed with stark, stylized features, including pure white skin and highly exaggerated body shapes to make them pop against rich, detailed backdrops. This release also saw the evolution of Sally Spears from a standard suspect into Grimoire’s permanent, sarcastic partner.

2019: Tangle Tower

Five years later, the studio released Tangle Tower. Feeling that the sharp, angular aesthetic of Secret of the Swamp had aged poorly, the team rebuilt the visual engine. Characters were redesigned with softer, rounder, and more "blobby" silhouettes. The color palette became warmer and more vibrant, and the character animations became significantly more fluid, bringing a theatrical cartoon quality to the murder mystery.

2024: The Mermaid Mask and the 3D Hybrid Era

With The Mermaid Mask, SFB Games achieved a rare milestone: they preserved the engine and baseline art style of the previous game while finding a new way to innovate. By incorporating stylized 3D models into the investigation segments, the team allowed players to physically rotate and inspect clues, bridging the gap between flat visual novels and tactile, interactive 3D adventure games.

Supporting Data

The unique visual signature of the Detective Grimoire series is the result of deliberate artistic choices, cinematic influences, and a highly collaborative production pipeline.

Artistic Influences: Shape Theory and Flat Color

Adam Vian’s visual style shifted dramatically after exposure to specific schools of animation:

• Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack): Tartakovsky’s core design philosophy dictates that character design is ultimately about strong, readable shapes. SFB Games adopted this approach, utilizing exaggerated proportions (e.g., elongated limbs, massive heads, or mouths placed unusually low on the face) to define a character’s personality at a glance.
• Richard Williams (The Thief and the Cobbler): Williams’ famously detailed, unfinished masterpiece heavily influenced the character design in Secret of the Swamp. Specifically, the decision to give characters pure white skin was inspired by the flat, high-contrast, graphic style of Williams’ film, ensuring characters remained readable against complex painted backdrops.

The Character Design Pipeline

A typical character in The Mermaid Mask undergoes a rigorous, iterative design process before appearing on screen:

[Initial Concept] Vague role/location defined (e.g., "Deep-sea diver")
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[Blind Sketching] Adam Vian & Catherine Unger draw concepts independently
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[Synthesis] Sketches are compared, and best features are merged
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[Animation Check] Charlotte Harris tests designs for movement & side-profiles
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[Expression Sheet] Full emotional range mapped (blinking, speaking, body language)

This collaborative friction is vital for complex designs. For instance, the character of Dr. Zephyr, a parapsychologist in The Mermaid Mask, presented severe animation challenges due to his massive physical scale and flowing robes. Conversely, Madam Tadpole, a deep-sea diver, pushed the boundaries of shape theory with an abstract head design and neck tattoos styled to resemble gills.

Even minor characters require exhaustive planning. The victim in The Mermaid Mask, Magnus Mortuga (the former captain of the submarine where the game takes place), was designed with a slightly vampiric, imposing appearance to immediately evoke mystery and suspicion.

The Technical 3D Pipeline

The standout feature of The Mermaid Mask is its seamless integration of 3D objects into a 2D hand-drawn universe. This was achieved through a multi-step pipeline:

1. Concept Painting: Catherine Unger painted the clue or object in her signature 2D style.
2. 3D Modeling: 3D artist Kindra Dantone translated the 2D painting into a low-polygon 3D model, meticulously hand-painting textures to match Unger’s brushwork.
3. The Shader Tech: To prevent the 3D models from looking out of place alongside 2D characters, programmer Tom Vian developed a custom tech-art shader. This shader dynamically generates a colored outline around the 3D model’s edges. The outline features a deliberate, subtle "wobble" that mimics the natural imperfection of a hand-drawn brushstroke, making the 3D assets feel cohesive within the hand-drawn environment.

Official Responses and Creative Insights

Reflecting on his two-decade journey, Creative Director Adam Vian provides valuable insight into the creative philosophy that guided SFB Games from browser-based novelties to console-grade productions.

On the Evolution of Art Style

Vian notes that his early work was defined by a lack of formal training, which naturally limited his creative output:

"I was probably 17 when we started, and I wasn’t very creative or pushing boundaries. The detective was just a guy in a brown trenchcoat with brown hair… I didn’t have weird cool influences. I was just drawing whatever came to mind—a basic go-to cartoon style."

His perspective shifted dramatically after attending art school and collaborating with Catherine Unger. This partnership introduced a healthy creative friction that defined the look of the later games:

"I basically use her as a sounding board all day, every day, on ideas, and then we’ll bash them out together. That’s a really healthy thing. Not only is she bringing her own ideas, but she’s providing me with someone to bounce ideas off all the time."

On the Transition to Hybrid 3D

Integrating 3D elements into The Mermaid Mask was born out of a desire to make the gameplay feel more tactile, moving beyond the static limitations of traditional visual novels:

"In Tangle Tower, [clues] are just one drawn picture, and that’s it. But wouldn’t it be more fun if you could look behind it, or if it’s a book, wouldn’t you want to open it? … I really think the 3D clues are the big selling point in the game because there’s so much juice in them. It’s a lot more like an interactive video game where you get a lot more hands-on rather than like a visual novel."

Implications

The journey of SFB Games and the release of The Mermaid Mask offer several broader lessons for the contemporary video game industry, particularly concerning the preservation of artistic identity and the methodologies of indie game development.

The Post-Flash Landscape and the Value of Fast Prototyping

The death of Adobe Flash in late 2020 marked the end of an era for internet-accessible game development. For creators like the Vian brothers, Flash was a crucial learning tool that allowed them to quickly work through subpar ideas and receive immediate audience feedback.

Today, platforms like Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot, paired with distribution portals like itch.io, serve as the spiritual successors to Newgrounds. However, the barrier to entry can still feel higher. The lesson of the "Super Flash Bros" remains highly relevant: rapid, small-scale prototyping is one of the most effective ways for aspiring game designers to build their skills.

Redefining the 2D vs. 3D Dichotomy

For years, game development has treated 2D and 3D as mutually exclusive choices. SFB Games demonstrates that this is a false binary. By utilizing modern shader technology, indie developers can harvest the benefits of 3D—such as dynamic lighting, camera rotation, and tactile object manipulation—without sacrificing the warmth and artistic identity of hand-drawn 2D illustration. This hybrid approach opens up new possibilities for genres like point-and-click adventures, visual novels, and puzzle games.

The Danger of the "Magnum Opus" Trap

Perhaps the most critical advice Adam Vian offers to contemporary indie developers is to resist the urge to build massive, overly ambitious projects right out of the gate.

"The best thing you can do to gain experience is to actually finish a project, because finishing something—getting it ready for release—is half the battle. So if you pick a small project, you get to that phase quicker and you actually experience it. The worst mistake is making your magnum opus too early and never finishing it."

In an industry where high-profile indie projects frequently suffer from scope creep and multi-year delays, SFB Games’ history of shipping polished, iterative experiences offers a sustainable alternative. By starting small, embracing collaborative partnerships, and allowing their art style to evolve naturally over twenty years, the Vian brothers have built a resilient studio capable of delivering beautiful, hand-crafted mysteries like The Mermaid Mask.