Creature design by Committee!?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? At several of
the game companies I’ve worked at in the past, it usually was. Sequestered away
for at least 20 minutes in the inXile conference room, ideas were put forth,
concepts bandied about, and I’m pretty sure someone ate a few donuts, but I
won’t name names. By the end of the meeting I had a list of the Pet’s
qualities:
- New supernatural creature
- Big, Giant, Scary, and “flying”
- Squash Roxy (a key canine character)
- Pick up things and throw
- Griffon-like
- Animal basis?
- ‘Ferocious’
- Arms are wings?
- Made in a Wizard’s workshop
- Possible Amalgamation
The meeting broke, confident that we had brought this
complex creature into focus. Meanwhile, I went back to the drawing board,
literally. I developed a few more of the initial heads I had sketched early on,
loosely inspired by my own past pet, A black and tan wire-haired terrier named
Amos. I sketched several more heads, animal-like, but with intelligent eyes,
still keeping with Maxx’s initial “monstrous yet regal approach.”
I emphasized the ‘pickup’ quality the creature was to
possess, (picking up other characters and dropping them from great heights)
giving it long forearms and spindly claws to clutch with, and went with
individual fingers to splay dramatically from our game camera.
Within a few days I had a head and body that everyone
seemed pleased with - it fit nearly all of the criteria yet hadn’t been seen
before.
Ultimately, the Pet was handed off to Craig Drageset for
animation, who brought a whole new life through motion, while Annie Sullivan
(AI) gave the creature its brains, each making it more real than I could have
alone.
Usually a nightmare, Committee Design actually works here.
We’re definitely doing something right…
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