Devlog #14 - Character Design Pt.4 - The Final One ft. Zen, Snow, Ms. Cardhover (& Suuj)

Hey hey hey! This week's devlog is a continuation of the Character Design series and also the last...
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...featuring //TODO: today characters. I'm already thinking about doing this in a kind of a different manner for the future but let's not make any premature assumptions and promises I might not keep. (σ･з･)σ

✧･ Character Design Pt.1 ﾟ✧
✧･ Character Design Pt.2 ﾟ✧
✧･ Character Design Pt.3 ﾟ✧

If this is the last character design devlog part for our pretty //TODO: today crew - shouldn't it be special in some way? ....Actually, it is! Because this will be a triple-pack! It won't be three-times the length of the previous posts, and writing that would take me a moon cycle, but we'll take a closer look at three friends of Teal: Zen, Snow and Ms. Cardhover. To top it off, there will be a little extra on SuujiDenchi (not the ship) too!ヾ(○･ω･)ﾉ☆

Where do I start? Hm. These three were done in a really short time frame. They didn't enjoy as much in-depth thinking, well as deep as I could go while crunching, as Teal, Joyce and Phoenix but maybe that's their strong point. Let me explain:

We knew from the get go that these three would appear fewer times in the game than our main trio. For the sake of focusing on the story of Teal, Joyce and Phoenix, our side characters wouldn't have the space to tell much about themselves.

I then thought...Wouldn't it be fair to have their designs be more obvious about who they are? The player can look at them and discover some of the character traits for themselves at first glance. Yes. Yes, this would be beautiful.

Present-me is like: Yeah, duh, shouldn't all character designs work like this? 
I think that in ideal cases you can see the most important traits of a character very quickly.

Another thing I did back then, and I wouldn't recommend it, is taking the first ideas right away. We didn't have much of another choice then. And I just went with what felt "right". Our subconsciousness does their best to evaluate stuff based on our past experiences. Yet in my opinion designs should always have intended reasons for their being. And I as the designer should as much as I can understand what I'm creating.

Anyhow, Zen, Snow and Ms. Cardhover turned out to look just like a short character description about them would tell. But again decisions were also made according to our time budget.

Zen

Zen is a super huge gaming and anime fan. But he is pretty chill about it all. Yeh, he's completely immune to judgemental looks too. Like, he wouldn't mention his hobbies in conversations if it wouldn't directly relate to the topic at hand. But if you'd ask him: 'Dude, you watchin' anime?' He would go: 'Sure, bro! Did you see 人気アニメ? Or あまり人気のないアニメ?' He's pretty chill in general. He doesn't even have an angry face sprite.

Snow

Snow is shy. Snow is introverted. Snow is calm and reasonable. I just adore this kid. It would have been a loss if Snow had stayed on the "nice-to-have" assets list. Because we didn't have that much info about them at first, Snow's design pretty much hailed from the zone of my comfortz.

Ms. Cardhover

I had a secret wish to design a lady who would look like the average older German woman, but with details that would make her Ms. Cardhover. That sounded weird. But she turned out a tad orderly for someone who had seen the whole world twice. Still it suits the way of how she presents herself. For instance, she doesn't usually talk much about her worries or the late Mr. Cardhover. However, her expressions always show a lingering benevolence.

Here are a little more details on their outfits:

Thank you for reading through the last part of the Character Design devlogs about the //TODO: today cast! ﾟ✧

But that's not it yet! We tweeted about how there'll be something extra for you! And we took some time to let our accidentally FAV CHRAACTRE SUUJ show himself in a few panels! °˖ ✧◝(○ ヮ ○)◜✧˖ ° Again, thanks for sticking with us to this point! Have a good one guys! ﾟ✧