Arthur

                               Character Introduction

Arthur

Today we'll be taking a look at Arthur, the brave!

Arthur was one of the last characters to be designed, model-wise, but I knew I wanted someone like him in the game from the get-go. Despite the stigma characters like these get, I wrote Arthur to be more than just the comic relief, but to be someone who actually has a clue about what's going on, even if his knowledge comes from the 2D world.

 

His design was inspired by a character in Persona 3 known as the Gourmet King, Suemitsu Nozomi. Since most of the designs are inspired by eastern games, I didn't had a lot of references for overweight characters. Japanese games don't really feature them all that often, but Nozomi is the one that kept popping up in my head all the time. 

 

I found his early design really fun, and considered using him just like this, but it would clash with the rest of the game's artstyle, but I kept it for the game icon since it's so interesting.

Hadaward

                                    Character Introduction

Hadaward

 Today we'll be taking a look at Hadaward, the rich prick!

"Hada" for short, is a character I created to be that asshole kid you knew, whose parents had way too much money, and he himself didn't had the maturity yet to know what that meant for him. I also very intentionally made him be annoying to be around. Not enough that the character gets ouright hated, which has been proven time and time again to be a bad idea. "A shitty character is still shitty even if it's intentional", is something I've heard many times before, so I tried to write him in a way that his assholeness comes from a place of naiveté. An ignorance borne of immaturity. Even so, there's plenty of opportunities in the story to put him in his place for some sweet catharsis.

His initial design didn't change much aside from the overall art revision that was made halfway through development. I wanted to give him a man-bun, but thought it would be a little too feminine, coupled with the rest of the details in his design, so I toned it down a little bit, but kept most of everything else. Shame his coat is so long, you'll most likely not be able to see it in-game

 

 

Update 12/05/2021

Update 12/05/2021

The game now finally has a name! Take a look at Occult:Rewrite's all new splashart!

Whenever I'm working on a project, be it a story, short novel or whatever, the harderst part isn't coming up with the setting, characters or even the ending... but the names. The names for the characters, the chapter titles and most importantly: The name for said work. So far I've been calling it "project Bruma" because "Bruma" will be an important word in the game's lore, but I couldn't keep calling it that way forever, so I brainstormed a few other titles.

When workshopping possible titles I knew from the beggining that I wanted it to have 3 main things going for it: 

1) Something that would allude to the "loop" mechanic tied to the story, which is something you'll only get a glimpse of on the definitive demo that'll be coming out in about 30-40 days.

2) It had to reference the supernatural, mysterious atmosphere of the game. 

3) It needed to have something "special" about it. A special character, or a specific way of writing it.

 

Now, for the first point, I tried a lot of "re" words, such as "repeat", "retry" and "Rewind". I liked rewind a lot, but when I was designing the logo, I went with "Rewrite" on a whim, and it ended up working out better in my opinion.

For the second one, I went with "occult", which is something a lot of the characters reference ingame, and it's the second key aspect to the story. 

For the third one, I though about many games that used special characters in the title, like the "Steins;Gate" and it's other series, or ".Hack". I took care not to end up straight copying another title's gimmick, which also keeping in mind "searchability". If the title ended up being too generic, it wouldn't be rememberer, or show up easily on google, and if the character was too complext, people would have trouble remembering it just the same, as well as it might trip some search engines.

Hence "Occult:Rewrite". A name that encompasses all three points.

Solar

                                         Character Introduction

Solar

 

 Today we'll be taking a look at Solar, the silent beauty!

Like I mentioned before, Solar was the first character to be created for the game. Not conceptualy, but she was the first model to be drawn, and the base for the game's artstyle. Why her and not the main character? Well, cute girls just work best as a base, right?

 

Initially, I wanted to draw a character that would be attractive, but looks somewhat unapproachable. The kind of girl that's shy, but still way out of most people's league on the outside. On the inside, she's just really reserved, if kinda goofy. That's where her design came from.
It also went pretty much unchanged from the get go. This was one of those times the first draft is so good you just run with it.

 

 

 

Aurora

                                 Character Introduction

Aurora

 

 

Today, we're gonna be taking a look at one of my favorite characters, Aurora.

Aurora was, if I'm not mistaken, the third character to be created right after the protagonist. She was supposed to be the cheerful girl that gets just way too scared at everything, which serves the horror ambience of the game.  

  

 

 

Just between us, her design is very reminiscent of a character from my favorite anime of all time, Tatami Galaxy. I felt like putting a little something as a nod to it, which is the reason Aurora's hair is very similar to Akashi's. This is even more evident in her early model, back when most of the characters were gonna have very pale skin, much like that anime's artstyle.

Her design didn't actualy changed a whole lot from day one. Aside from her more mature version in the concept art, this is the first draft of her model, while below is Pezkoh's take on it. 

 
He did an amazing job cleaning up the model, which is why the final version is basically this model, but slightly tweaked and updated.

By the way, something that will become apparent as the character names come up, is that all of them have a specific meaning. It took a lot of time to come up with names that worked both in portuguese and english. Aurora's name, of course, comes from the phenomenon, and pairs up really well with her best friend, which you'll get to know next update!
 

Character Introduction: The protagonist

 Character Introduction

The protagonist 

   

 

 

Just look at this handsome young man! It's him the majority of the story will be following.The protagonist was not the first character that was created for the game, that was actually Solar, but his design went through several changes before I settled on this one.In the concept art, he looks a lot more mature. That's because originally I was going to have all the characters be college aged, but decided against it going forward because while I usually enjoy stories with more mature characters, I felt like the story would have more of an impact in them if they were just a bit younger, and they could also act sillier without everything feeling childish and out of place.

 

 

 

From the beginning, I wanted the main character to be this kid who hasn't really come to terms with the loss of his friend. You'll notice his expression only changed in the last version. That's because, while it serves the story for the protagonist to have a bored outlook on life, a bored main character usually makes for a bored player. If he looks at everything with indifference, so will the one reading his thoughts, so I had to compromise.The way I found to get that message across was to give him some really shaggy hair and messy clothes. The kind that you wake up, throws on and with a passing "whatever" before going out. We all had those days.

       

As far as his clothes go, every character wears some kind of coat, because of the climate in the island, which honestly is just an excuse to have them wearing additional layers so I can work on the clothes design with more freedom. I was never really good at minimalism, and they all needed to be wearing their uniforms, so the layers add to their individuality. For the main character, I gave him a detective-inspired long coat, since he's the one that'll be doing the deduction for most of the game, it felt only appropriate.

I also toyed with different colors for the coat and additional details. While the beige looks really good, I had spent so much time working with the green variation that I got way too attached to it, so I ended up going with that version. 

 

 

Also of note, is this version, made by the artist that was helping out in early development, Pezkoh. I love how clean his linework is, but ultimately I had to overhaul the design of every character, and I couldn't hope to end up with a version this clean myself, so I used one of my early designs as a starting point, but kept a couple of details like the belt, and coat fasteners.

And that's it for the protagonist-- oh, you might be wondering what's his name.

Well... that part is a secret!

About the project

 

Project Bruma (which in portuguese means "mist") started development on march 12, 2021, and it's been developed mostly as a solo project. The concept came to be many years ago as a very different game that had the same overall aspects as this one (a mystery visual novel that focused on characters relationships) but has since then gone through many changes both in themes and teams. It started as a group effort between three friends in college, but due to scheduling conflicts, it had to be shelved. I felt like the world and story that was conceived back then was too interesting to never see the light of day, so, now that things are more stable, I'm able to breath new life into it.

About the author:

A 25 year old brazilian biologist that has long ago traded the lab for a cintiq. I've been teaching myself how to draw for a few years out of passion for the craft, and luckly I've managed to make a living out of it for the time being, which is where so far all the funds for this game are coming from. Since I've set out to make this game, I've asked the help of many friends into teaching me how to code, compose and market the game, things I basically never had to do before, but that are being delightful to learn. Videogames were one of the main things that got me into art, and still inspire me to this day, so I figured it'd be nice to give something back and hopefuly inspire someone else along the way.