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.