Time for start my weekly blog post about our game we are making.
We like the story with the whole game and also the visual of it. But as artist it was kinda hard to redesign the characters so what we did was changing the game visually. By doing this it was easier for us all to stand behind the game and say ”this is our game” since we came up with the design of the characters and environment and not just copy the team behind the concept.
I did some sketches what I thought could be our new main character (the player).
The nr 1 was inspired from the team who did this concept so I was seeking some sort of inspiration at first. Nr 2 is a ninja that the team had talked about before about implant a ninja instead of the burglar so I did some alternative head styles to him/her. I tried to keep the characters as much as unisex as possible since we did not plan to make the character in a specific sex.
But we didn’t feel like this was good enough so we got back to brainstorming again and we felt that Otto von Fancy who is the antagonist in this game were looking very British and we all liked that. So what we did we took the game back to early 19th-century and added a solid steampunk theme to it. Here we have a bunch of options to go with,both with the characters but also the objects.
We made new sketches and this time we went away from human character and did sketch some animals. We thought this was a very cool idea and this could be also easier to keep the character to unisex.
Unfortunately I some how lost my sketches but they didn’t get picked for the main character. Instead we went with Evelina Foxberg character design, the raccoon.
Art made by Evelina Foxberg
The raccoon I really like since they have a famous reputation for being light-fingered in the animal kingdom together with the fox. The bag around the raccoon waist represent the inventory. The eyepatch is for the narrative feeling of steampunk and nothing you can use for like see in the dark like a night vision goggles.
Anyway, after todays playtest with our teacher we are rethinking about the raccoon as a character. This is because of our teacher did mention that both raccoon and turtle (our Otto von Fancy is a turtle) are in the game Sly Cooper. This is pretty funny I think since no one in our team did know about this game and didn’t refer to this game at all and we manage to pick both animal to our game. This shouldn’t be a big problem if it wasn’t for the raccoon and turtle in Sly Cooper are main characters in the game, as in ours.
teroniborg 
Interesting peek into your work process! I’m a bit curious as to exactly what story it is you’re trying to convey here though. I know personally the concept well enough, but someone not familiar with the in-n-outs and deets behind ”Fancy Mansion” would be confused.
Perhaps explain the main character’s and Otto’s roles in your game further? You mention ”burglar” and ”light-fingered” for the player avatar, but nothing about Otto von Fancy besides the fact that he’s the antagonist, and how you’ve chosen to interpret him as British. Since this is a blog post about character development/design, I would’ve liked to see more of their motives as to why they’re protagonist vs. antagonist.
This is a personal issue of mine, but next time, maybe upload a bigger image file of your sketches/artwork? I’d like to see more of the details in your sketches here, but there’s no option to open up a bigger version in a separate tab. A slight annoyance for visually impaired people who has to squint to see tiny things.
And as a side-note, I can tell English is not a language you’re fluid in. Have you considered writing in Swedish, or asking a friend to proofread your posts before you upload them? It could help you catch grammar mistakes, and create a more professional end result.
Other than that, I’m excited to see more of your work! I’m glad to see you’ve gone through several concept sketches while designing the characters. The idea to make the characters animals could definitely work well, and I’d love to play a game like this. Google around for a couple of critters who are slightly more unusual besides animals who are a known feature in many games, and perhaps do a few sketches using those as a base? Also, I’m positive cats have been used as characters in plenty of games before, but a cat burglar could still make for both a cute character with an appeal to the younger audiences, and as a witty pun.
/Addis
GillaGilla