The evolution of the MC

 Hi everybody.

Today we're sharing the evolution of our game's protagonist from the beginning to how he is now. 

1. We thought it would be cool to let players choose the race of their main character when we were still in the early phases of coming up with a story.

Those were the days when we were more naive and didn't know the realities of making a game. We discarded this idea two-and-half minutes after coming up with it, and all we have left of that original plan is this sketch. 

2. After deciding to stick with a human character, we found out about layered images in Ren'Py and agreed that if we cannot have multiple main characters, we will at least have one that can express a wide and complex range of emotions. 

Chestnut did this sketch when we were thinking of what facial expressions to add. 

We got rid of the tilt of the head, but this sketch was the basis for many elements that found their way into the final version of the game.

3. The top scene belongs to the very first time that we tested the game's intro. We didn't have other sprites, and we wanted to see how the MC fits the surrounding. 

At that time, we loved it and thought it looked neat. 

The image below is the same scene in 0.2 (with some new GUI elements). The massive visual change from the first version to the current main character is, perhaps surprisingly, thanks to Waldo, the gatekeeper.

4. We had already made the MC and had added him to the game when Chestnut designed Waldo. 

We had initially talked about keeping the quality of the drawings at an acceptable but practical level. Something that could be drawn quickly to help us with the production time. 

But when Chestnut drew Waldo, she got carried away, and the final result seemed to have a lot more polish and quality than other sprites (in particular the main character's). 

So we had to decide: were we going to redo Waldo and lower the quality of its art, or go with the less practical but more visually appealing choice of revising the MC to match Waldo's quality. It was an easy decision.

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The main character is, so far, our most complex sprite. We will, at a future date, make a post with all his expressions, but suffice it to say that he is capable of expressing a lot of emotions. He has: 

• 6 eyebrows
• 36 eyes
• 26 mouths
• 16 skins
• 19 hand a
• 48 hand b (including objects held)
• 10 hands (double)
• Plus several extra expressions (erections, floating in a bubble, getting slapped, etc.)

We hope you've enjoyed this little background information.

Cheers