and in this devlog we take a look at the protagonist herself
and her weird origins
in general I plan all my characters for potential sequels - and then end up never making a sequel
and I have so much fun planning that I always overshoot and only some of it gets in the game
usually end up very background lore heavy stuff .. where I am the only one familiar with the back-lore 😔
For the world itself there were a few important things:
- straight sci-fi no twists, no metaphors (no current events, trends or politics: true escapism)
- you are not saving the world or hostages - only yourself
- far from earth in space and time - but not that far:
- humans are a nomadic species (escaped from earth a long ago - no contact with their homeworld)
- space faring ended up with tougher humans:
- almost immune to radiation
- they are somewhat paleish with a slightly grayish skin
- not competitive with aliens when it comes to invention:
- most of them are employed as laborers (blue collar)
- there are plenty of alien species - and only some of them humanoid
I also I like to mention I cannot draw the same character twice in the same way
I can't sign my name twice the same way either
my life is difficult 😔
but I digress
For the protagonist I wanted a somewhat generic hero - but with some twists:
- Zortch: generic mechanic girl
- twist: she is an incompetent mechanic
- she has talents and skill - just not in her field
- country girl in the big city
- polite and nice
- yet incredibly destructive ( not useful when you are supposed to fix things )
Some traits are to explain away FPS game elements:
- mechanic -> lot of pockets -> that is how the items and guns stored
also I thought drawing hair like that would be easy to draw and model and came up with an explanation:
- she doesn't like hair getting in her face -> but because her hands are covered in oil and she uses them to comb them back they end up in that weird triangular shape -> no shampoo in the world can take that stuff out
one of the reasons why I'm making a female protagonist is because I never made a game with one before (no finished ones at least) and also there is somewhat of a challenge element:
- I heard that Mel Brooks was proud that with Get Smart he was the first one to make a TV series with an idiot in the leading role
and this was combined with the idea:
- I read some interviews that the creators of Monkey Island felt that there couldn't be a 'Galbrush' the same jokes with a female lead wouldn't work
in general there seem to be a trend of women getting portrayed as insanely competent in a world of buffoon oafish men
so in this case I thought of making a incompetent female: someone who is actually stupid and gets in trouble - but the twist is her other skills help her get out of it
and instead of a 'Galbrush' she is more of a female Roger Wilco (also she is nice to everyone but still only has a few friends - mostly non-human)
and another female portrayal I don't get is the 'Zero Suit Samus' -how they expect anyone to run in high-heels? - which is why I insist her on wearing these large boots (fun fact: funnily enough historically poor women would wear large boots and started wearing high-heels to look more like men - who wore them to make riding horses easier)
also originally I also wanted them to be rocket boots so you could use them for double jump - and would also explain how she has such strong legs for the ridiculously powerful kicks as they were huge heavy low-tech rockets - in the end this made planning levels too hard and now you just get an extra boost for kicking
and there are a few characters that directly inspired the design:
- I really liked the design of the female lead in Cargo: Quest for Gravity
which is where the idea of many pockets came from
and the idea of having a character with insanely buggy pants filled with stuff
who has these very large boots to kick stuff - which lead to another character that likes kicking:
- I'm a fan of Duke3D and there was a question of how a female Duke would look like
and in the end I found that I don't like Bombshell: she gave me the impression of a typical abusive wine-mom
so this lead to the idea: the heroine should be a young adult who is the opposite of this (someone who doesn't drink alcohol or smoke cigars etc. )
and some of the design choices were made during creating the 3D model:
- I originally pictured Zortch with flat breasts - but she is so tomboyish you couldn't tell she is a gal
- then agains she is nowhere as big as the female guards
- in general it's tricky to model breasts that look average from far but not that big from close
- of course the closer you get to things the bigger they seem 🤔
and one more important nuance:
this little chart shows the 'true origin' of Zortch - I wonder if anyone will be able to figure it out? 🤔
anyway, here is a concept art dump (proudly made in mspaint):
the original concept had you start with a BFG-ish weapon - you started with a rocket launcher instead of a pistol
as the lore went the nomadic humans would be harrased by giant space creatures
and a simple 9mm just wouldn't cut it - so everyone had personal nuclear howitzers (an idea somewhat inspired by the Red Dwarf bazookoids)
it was a fun concept but ultimately didn't work in gameplay ( I wish I still had the prototype with it - it got lost along the way 😔
and of course making the 3D model was not easy
I'm only good at making non-human models 😔
here is an early version:
and finally a separate one was used for the hud:
horrifying isn't it? - in the end I retouched the eyes in 2D
"It's Amazing how much stuff ends up on the cutting room floor!"next up: Leftovers