2015/04/28, 14:27 by checker

It’s my pleasure to introduce the next five SpyParty characters! Wait, did I say five? I meant six.

It’s true, we have added identical twins in this group, making this group six new characters total! A bonus character, no microtransactions required! More on that below, but first, check out how crowded the whole cast picture is getting:

I think we’re going to need a riser for them to stand on or chairs or something for the next group shot when we add the rest of the characters.

More Saturated Colors!

One of our big goals for this batch was to really push the color saturation of the outfits. We actually thought we were being really colorful with the second batch, but after living with them for a while, it was clear they were drawn towards the blue/grey/brown video game gravity well.

This time, as you can see in these thumbnails of the progression from left to right, I think we’re finally at a good level of color saturation:

I was asked during an interview if I thought we’d go back and modify the colors on the older groups, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary. It’s not that nobody can wear blue/grey/brown, and in fact, those are stylish and sophisticated colors, it’s just that everybody shouldn’t be those colors, so I’m glad we’re mixing in some fully saturated primary and secondary colors now, I think it’ll make a big difference in the look of the game, and also in how quickly the players can identify the characters and manage their attention.

Diversity

As always, having a diverse cast is another goal of mine for SpyParty, and it is really a great game for exploring this. Not only is there the obvious visual interest that comes from having all these unique looking guests, but the gameplay benefits from it as well. The idea of “attention as a resource” is one of the aesthetic goals for SpyParty, and the more distinct and striking the characters are, the easier it is for the Sniper (and the Spy) to keep mental notes about their behaviors and movements during the game, and I can go deeper on the subtle stuff. Plus, did I mention they just look cool?

Meet the Latest Guests to Arrive at the Party

And here they are…as before, these “letter names” are temporary, and we haven’t decided how we’re going to come up with the final names, but I’m hoping we can involve the community somehow. In the meantime, the beta players come up with their own nicknames for all the characters, and then I end up using those too and nobody is going to care about their real names anyway, are they?

Mr. K

He’s a Sikh, and is our best-dressed guest. John Cimino, the amazing SpyParty artist, loves headgear and elaborate hairstyles for making recognizable silhouettes, and a Sikh’s turban is a perfect example of this. We’ll need to be respectful with how we treat the Sikh aspects of the character, so for example his beard is long and untrimmed and he’ll drink water. Hopefully folks will let us know if we make any mistakes here so we can correct them. Update: I was nervous about referencing religion in the game because it’s such a sensitive topic, but looks like it might be okay!



Ms. L

She’s a rocker, think Chrissie Hynde or Patti Smith. We went with the leopard sleeved leather jacket and the silk shirt so we could really push the bright yellow; she’s got our most saturated and brightest primary colors in her outfit of all the characters. She also happens to be based on my girlfriend…I figured John put his girlfriend in the last batch of characters, so it was my turn!

Drs. M & N

Identical twins! How will they affect gameplay! I have no idea! What are they doctors of? I have no idea! As you can see if you look closely, they have a few subtle differences between them, and we’ll probably start out with those and see how they play. We can always make them more or less differentiable to tune them, but I’m hoping we can keep it really subtle. Once I add personalities and propensities to the characters (planned for this year, called “dossiers”), then I’m probably also going to look at adding a draft or pick/ban phase to the game loadout so the Spy and Sniper can negotiate who’s invited to the party, and I’ll be very interested to see how the twins are treated in that environment. Will the Sniper allow them both, then highlight or lowlight one to tell them apart? Will the Spy use them as a diversion, or pick to be one of them? So much stuff to play with here! As a technical side note, I’ve always said we’d have unique skeletons and animations for every character, but I’m breaking my promise for the twins; they’ll be instances of the same character model, so instead of having 20 guests in the 1.0 version of SpyParty, we’ll have 21. We reserve the right to give them different animations for some actions as tells.



Ms. O

John’s “sculpted clay” hair style for SpyParty pays off again! We modeled Ms. O as if she’s of a Mediterranean origin, like maybe Greek or Italian. Again, like with Ms. L, we pushed the primary color saturation on Ms. O. Compare her green blouse to Mr. G’s uniform; she should be much more visible at the party.



Mr. P

Or should I say Señor P? I will admit Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was one of the inspirations for Mr. P. The cowboy hat has the obvious positive impact on his silhouette, but he’s also got the bright and saturated color scheme, and that sweet belt buckle. We’ll have to name him “Salvador Perez” or something similar to have plausible deniability that we didn’t put the video game’s name on a character’s belt buckle.



Group Shots

Here are all the group conversation shots so far, including the new characters mixed in!

When will they be in the game?

John is animating them now, so we’re aiming to have them in the game by PAX in Seattle at the end of August, or hopefully before that so we can actually test them! These guys gives us 16 total characters, so we’ll be able to do the Courtyard maps, Ballroom, and almost Veranda (which has 17 characters in the old art version).

I can’t wait to have these new folks at the party!