merry ides of march devpost!
Ahhh, it’s that time of year again; another lap around the sun and another day closer to the Ides of March, the day that Julius Caesar got skewered through by his beloved friends! Sweet, sweet memories… But no matter! It’s Snoozy Devpost time!
If this is your first time seeing us, hey! We’re Snoozy Kazoo, a game dev studio of six guys who make dumb, silly, and fun games. We made the Turnip Boy games, and we’re currently in the midst of our latest release: Hobnobbers!
This month, we'll be getting into how we concept our characters!
What's Snoozy been up to?
A lot we can’t talk about, actually, but a lot of behind the scenes work as we’ve been nailing down various elements on Hobnobbers! Part of this work has manifested itself in, of course, Hobnobbers art style!
As with any game- or visual project, really- it’s important to spend time on concepting ideas and styles, so that the project has a strong foundation. Hobnobbers is no exception, and our lovely Creative Director, Jen, has come up with a workflow to ensure this works out!
We’ll be introducing a new character to convey this idea: the Gacha Goose! The host of one of our in-game shops, the Goose is an intimidating bird that controls a puppet girl.
(Note: Despite the name ‘Gacha Goose’, there will be no microtransactions in Hobnobbers! Fret not!)
The Process
Concepting is broken down into 6 phases:
Outlining the goal
Research
Sketch
Feedback
Refinement
Finishing
Outlining the goal is a process of figuring out what we want the design to be. In terms of utility: is this character an early-stage boss that is meant to introduce the character to the whimsy of a game’s world? Are they a shop-keeper? An intimidating mob enemy that can kill you in one hit? In addition, what sort of feelings do we want this character to invoke? For the Gacha Goose, we wanted the player to despise the Goose and feel pity for the girl. What specific vibes would help convey these emotions?
Taking the time to write down your goals before starting to draw can set a strong foundation that snowballs into the rest of these stages! Conveying as much information as possible with visuals alone is particularly important for games, where players don’t have the time to read a novel before playing.
Research
...is self-explanatory, yet sometimes the longest stage in the process: we collect reference materials that achieve the goals we mentioned in our first section, and see what we can learn from them!
For the Gacha Goose, medieval and doll-like pieces of clothing served as big inspiration. We ended up looking at a lot of clown-adjacent pieces, porcelain-esque prosthetics, and watercolor illustrations to get closer to our final idea.
Sketch
...is when all the ideas that have been worked on reach fruition for the first time. It can be messy, but just slamming together a variety of different vibes and looks to see what invokes the right feeling. Many different concepts should be made here, in order to keep in mind the next round…
Feedback!
It’s time to show the concepts to an audience. We do several different types of feedback: an internal one with just the team, a semi-internal one with friends and family of the team, and one with Camp Kazoo over in our Discord.
Not only do we ask for what people like best, but also what they feel about the design. Sometimes context is given for the character’s role in the world, sometimes it isn’t; finding out what that ‘first gut feeling’ is important.
Refinement
...is the actual application of the feedback that’s been received. It is a process of reflection, reassessing our goals, and figuring out how to marry what people think with what the purpose of our design is.
It should be noted that one stage of refinement isn’t the end of the process- going back to Feedback after finishing up another iteration and getting even more notes on what people think is just as important! Just be mindful of reaching a done state at some point. You’ve got a whole game to make, after all, and iterating constantly on the same idea will make for a game that never gets shipped.
And we're done!
The final result of our beloved Gacha Goose’s design is…
…
…oops! We’re keeping that secret for now! ;p We’ll be showing her final design in future updates, so keep your eyes peeled for those!
That’s our concepting process, out in the open! We hope it was insightful, and perhaps even helpful to other game developers out there! Now, onto other news…
Some new looks...?
We’re not just updating our game’s aesthetics; we’re updating our own! If you had peeped our website within the past few months, you’d have seen that everyone on the team had somewhat different icons; but no longer! We are all now united under the banner of having an Anime Profile Picture… okay yes perhaps incredibly minor compared to the epic task of making a game But. Look At How Cutie We Look Anyways.
Team Corner!
It’s back! Our favorite little place to meet different team members and bombard them with questions to foster a parasocial relationship with them! What fun and whimsy!
This week we’ve got… badadadum, Jen! Our Art Director!
What are you most excited for in Hobnobbers?
I’ve been really enjoying our concepting phase! It’s always fun to create new characters/environments and figure out what makes them tick. We’ve also been playing around with some UI design, which is personally one of my favorite things to work on. I’m excited to continue to see these things make it into the game! There’s always a point in development when all the pieces kind of click together, and you can see the fruits of everyone’s disciplines start to create something truly unique!
What’s something you’ve worked on in Hobnobbers recently that you’ve found particularly frustrating?
I feel most in my element when I’m working on 2D assets. Whenever I touch anything 3D, there’s some growing pains that come along with it. All in all, I get really passionate about learning new things, so it’s been pretty fun. When I start concepting characters or mocking up UI screens I feel like I can take a breath of relief though. I’m hoping some day 3D feels as natural as 2D to me!
What’s a source of personal inspiration for you as you design characters for Hobnobbers?
When it comes to the world of Hobnobbers, I’ve been really inspired by Studio Ghibli films! I love the soft world building in films like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, and how they handle spirits and folklore within these films. I’m hopping that we can create some interesting characters that players can really speculate about, but not necessarily get all the answers easily. I kind of want the players to create the answers themselves.
When it comes to the stores and what we call “whimsical consumerism”, I’ve been inspired by games like “Bombrush Cyberfunk” and, funnily enough, a game called “Breaking da Rules”, an old Fairly Odd Parents game made by THQ. Bombrush I just love those Y2K vibes, and it was a big inspiration for creating the runner. Breaking da Rules has a great way of creating these very whimsical and silly spaces. They also have this great ability to mesh 2D and 3D elements, which gives us some inspiration as well!
Lastly, I’ve been really inspired by old fantasy books. I love absorbing and learning from materials that inspire me, and recently I’ve received this book called “Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You!” (A long title I know.) I can always go on Pinterest, but having physical resources from fantasy artists that I feel like to me are “the greats” gives me a lot of inspiration.
Yay! Thank you for your time!
Andddd we're all wrapped up!
As a reminder, feel free to send in questions for us to answer here on our Tumblr, or join our Discord and ask questions in the “ask-the-devs-❓” channel!
See you next month!!
— Kiki
