Life at an underground game company.
Posts tagged Characters
The under-representation of women and girls in games.
02 years ago
The difference between indie houses and the big corporate machine: indie houses innovate, corporate machines generate.
You already knew this, right? One area where this smacks hardest is the role of the women in games. Recently, I saw a retweet Brooke did from cuppy of Metaplace fame.
You can find the direct link here. But the main gist of it…
- *whine* Women are HARD.
- *whine* Women are EXPENSIVE.
- *whine* We cant break stuff if we put women in games.
- *whine* Games would be so much more profound if we didnt have to think about gender. (They actually used Ms. Pac-Man as an example. LOLWUT?)
We here at Double Cluepon have something to say about that…
- What a load of crap. Seriously. What a complete load of utter crap. (It’s 2010, and you’re using the same excuses people use to keep women from advancing in other areas. Thanks for injecting it in game design, an area these attitudes have no place in.)
- What an excuse to not innovate.
- Women should not be excluded because of the outcome of a biological circumstance.
- Women are awesome characters, and should be used more, not less often.
This is where indie houses come in. When you want to generate money, you use the tried and true formula. When you want to innovate, you get all experimenty. =) This is where love of game design comes into play. There is room for both camps, to be sure. That being said, I will repeat here, my response to Brooke:
We know about this problem, and we plan to do something about it.
Emerald Kingdom has the average male representation. However, it has an above average female representation. The background, the story, the content…we wanted something different. Not for the sake of being different, but because doing it made sense. Sprites (our Major NPC Class) in Emerald Kingdom? There are 26 main Sprites handling skill Marks. Out of those 26: 16 are female, 10 are male. Is the story and content totally centered around the feminine aspect of things? Certainly not. I can tell you straight up: there is definitely something for everybody. But do males need to dominate? Do they need to be there to “drive the game” or “push the story?”
Nope. They sure do not. Women can be just as evil as the men. They can be just as conniving. They can also be just as kind, and spirited. Beatrice, Avatea, Para and Confusia…Pearly…Thrynity. Notice a theme here? We are not making a female centric game, but we are paying attention, not only to our market…
We are paying attention to a far more important opportunity: the opportunity to innovate.
As the Sprites are the major NPC’s of the game, and interaction with them will be a Big Thing, it’s important to get story and character design right. I am sure there are those out there that believe doing something more male centric is a slam dunk. I am sure you could find elevendy billion focus groups to agree with that. But, honestly? Where is the fun in that? What’s more, if you are NOT having fun in this business, and wont eat your own dog food…
You have no business designing games in the first place. At the very least, you need to do some serious soul searching.
So, wrapping up: we know about this issue. We think we can represent women, and men…in a strong manner, and in such a way that does not relegate women to the role of decorated fluff.
New art, promo, and WireWork updates.
02 years ago
by Azrael
in Emerald Kingdom
Short form today, we wanted to release some updates on how WireWorks is coming along. While it’s a bit behind schedule, it is coming along nicely. All the basic gameplay mechanics have been coded, now it’s on to some of the trickier game logic. We have a great deal of code work ahead of us in the coming months, which is why we are looking around for another developer. Meanwhile, while we conduct our talent search, work goes on. Here are some updated shots of WireWorks:
Some more UI elements have been coded in...
And gel now flows through the circuits....
While programming is working on WireWorks, our art department is working on two things: drill downs of concepts into gamesprites, and paints of concept artwork. Every so often, we like to release a promo of a Sprite. Sprites are the Major NPC class in Emerald Kingdom; they are central to the theme of the world. They will be very interactive, and their impact on the game play will be significant. We do not release every bit of art we complete…but this Sprite is special.
Meet Pearly. She is, without a doubt, one of the more aloof ones...
Meet Pearly. She is one of our more aloof characters, both in design and in how we plan to structure her mannerisms. Pearly is based on someone we actually know and love. We wanted to do right by her, as she supplied me with a plethora of ideas from a player perspective. She also contributed heavily to my thinking in the way of NPC to Player interactions. See, it’s one thing to say you want to do things differently, but if you want to do things differently…well, that means talking to people who play and love games. Pearly is one of those people.
Pearly the Sprite will be a special Sprite, she will dole out a system mark: The Mark of Love. Emerald Kingdom will allow social play in the area of character marriage. When that happens, Pearly will arrive and mark the characters as such. In the real world, Pearly asked that her namesake be a bit of a vagabond of sorts. So one of the behavior models being put together for Pearly the sprite is right up that alley. You may find her ranting about needing a brush, or a day spa…or find her napping on a park bench. Hardly a moron however, she figures in some of the backstory being developed. She can be a powerful and insightful force.
As usual, when we release concept art, when we can we like to release some wallpaper. Pearly is no exception:
Pearly Promo 3
We have released these on our DeviantArt channel, and you can find them there for the taking.
We hope you enjoy them. We want to shout out to Pearly for letting us use her for the game. =)
New branding! New Artwork! Gremmies!
02 years ago
I love being able to release new stuff. It’s been a busy week here at Double Cluepon. Between WireWorks, and trying to add a new developer, well…it’s been a little crazy. In addition to that, Sprites and all kinds of other stuff is being painted. But, when the artist needs a break, I set her loose on the other little things that need to be done.
Like proper and coherent branding for our home page.
New home page logo. It's hard to control gremmies. They think everything is theirs.
Of course, we also needed to make sure we did one for the dA channel. And, of course, Amy did a stamp as well:
So, these will be appearing at a website near you. Get em while you can. Or before some curious gremmie steals them all.
A fresh view of the wall…
02 years ago
by Azrael
in Emerald Kingdom
As a producer, I design visually. Because of this, I have to be surrounded by the artwork that the Art Department cranks out. It’s not enough for me to say “Beatrice does this” or “Paranoia says that”…
I have to be able to put faces to names. But more importantly…I have to be able to visualize the scenes and quests and game in my head. When Dave writes story related material, I need to be able to put the parties involved into the situation that’s been written. Believe it or not, I started with just a bunch of inspirational pieces I found here and there. I put these into our development wiki, and used them to start building my internal visual reference of how things were going work. What it would look like.
As original art was produced, I would replace the inspirational image, with our original. That’s when things really take off on some levels. It’s a form of Quality Control in some ways: If I can see the picture in my mind, and it works perfectly…I know we are on the right track. But, back to visual design…my office walls are filled artwork progressions. Awhile back, I posted about my walls.
Well, a couple weeks ago, we made a big push to finish the basic concepts of the needed artwork for the alpha/beta. Having finished that, we are painting them up. You saw an example of this yesterday, with Thrynity. What you do not typically see is the design process in motion. Last time readers here saw my wall, it was full…
The back wall holds Sprite progressions...
These days, it’s really full. And it’s getting fuller with each passing day. We are getting one to two Sprites painted a day. Once all the major NPC’s are painted, we will begin drilling these into models, and then: the final animated gamesprites.
But even in this format, they are quite useful to me, and the writing director. Even in this format, it allows us to dream up the world of Emerald Kingdom, visually…and let’s imagine scenarios and events. Without accurate and quality artwork, Emerald Kingdom cannot come alive in my mind. If I cant see it, then neither will you.
The side wall has various stuffs. Note though, our UI reference shots from other games.
Items, beasts and miscellanea, as well as player clothes, player models and hairstyles are just as important. We have not forgotten about those. Nor have we forgotten to reference the works of others. Thing is, there is no reason in the world to re-invent the wheel when it comes to things like basic UI design. At the same time, we have buildings and specialized objects in the design queue. We also have beasts, monsters…everything you could need or want in an MMO.
So, while we may be quiet here on the blog and elsewhere from time to time. Remember these walls. My walls change every day. As they change, the game gets an inch closer to reality, and all of us here at Double Cluepon feel another pinch of happy as we get closer to our goal.
In the space of a meanwhile…
12 years ago
WireWorks is being assembled and put together. But, we have not stopped working. We are now busy producing characters and objects and items and clothes and…the list goes on…
Emerald Kingdom has now gone from something that we were laying the groundwork for, to a full time effort. While we were working on Wire Works, Emerald Kingdom was still getting 70% of our time. Now from an art and writing standpoint, it’s getting 100% of our time. The studio is producing art for the Doug now, while he does the assembly of WireWorks. When WireWorks is done, Doug will then have some assets to start putting together the Alpha of EK.
Meanwhile, we have not forgotten about the folks watching and waiting. A concept for one of our baddies was finalized the other day, and we figured we would release it as a wallpaper. So far, we have been showing you the nice and the pleasant. Beatrice, Para, Confusia…Avatea. All fairly good girls. You know, good, wholesome. That’s not the case with our subject today…
Definitely not dating material.
Thrynity is not a good girl.
Thrynity is a Sprite. And while she may look like you want to have her on your arm, looks can be deceiving. We produced a set of 4 for Thrynity. Enjoy them all. Remember to keep passing the word to everyone you know. We are starting to get more positive attention, and more looks. We like that..Keep it up!
Links to the others:
