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Savitr & Collie

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,852 words

I've made 3D models for the two main characters of this still-unnamed shorter Divine Dreams RPG this week: Savitr, the Seraph paragon, and Collie, his (ridiculous) caninely-quirky Cherub apprentice. Quite a contrast!



Savitr is a half-Lucen/half-Bold Seraph who's the father of Dayvha, protagonist of Divine Dreams. He's roughly based on MARDEK's Enki, though he's got a deeper backstory and general story involvement. This shorter game will mostly explore the contrast between his bright, angelic exterior and role, and his darker internal conflicts which motivate him to do what he does.

Collie - who's based on (or rather, just a direct translation of, as she's changed little) a character from Taming Dreams - is a fresh new Cherub (with a newly-designed uniform) who idolises Savitr and has always dreamed of becoming like him. For whatever reason, she acts like a dog. It's silly.

Together, they have a master & apprentice dynamic. He's the wise and world-weary competent mentor, while she's the excitable, energetic youth who acts in part as an audience surrogate as she learns the ropes and asks Savitr about the ways of the world.



I spent this week making those models, and I've already added them to the game (technically; I can run around as them and check their stats, but they can't battle yet):



I haven't actually built any of this 'prelude' game's areas yet or anything - so this is using the Dreamcave I already have - but here they are on the menu, to clarify that what I'm doing is making use of what I've already built as much as anything.

In terms of gameplay, it'll be interesting having Savitr much more powerful in terms of stats and skills than Collie; it wouldn't make sense at all if this greatest of Seraphim was no more skilled than a fresh new Cherub! Perhaps a big part of the gameplay, then, would be Savitr protecting and guiding Collie?

I've also given some thought to their weapons. As I've talked about in previous posts, I like the idea of using music as a medium for magical miasma manipulation; by playing music, people are able to bring out inner feelings that warp the miasma into spells. So characters might all have tools which are a combination of weapons and musical instruments.

I originally gave Savitr a pair of angelic trumpets, and Collie an axe + guitar combo, but there were various irritating issues with both of them.

I really liked the weapon concept that I came up with for Dayvha, as shown in this image from a few posts ago:



They're a pair of slender crystal swords called 'resonars', as they resonate - both sonically and with the user's inner emotions - when rubbed together like a bow against the strings of a violin (which is what they'd sound like). It's a concept I really wanted to do something with.

After some frustrated fiddling around with Savitr's trumpets, I wondered whether he might also use these resonars:



It'd make some sense for father and son to use the same style of weapon. Perhaps this could even be extended: maybe resonars are the signature weapon of the Seraphim, like lightsabers (which they obviously resemble) are the signature weapon of the Jedi?

With that in mind, I wondered whether Collie, too, could have the same weapon type - I've already been internally likening Savitr and Collie to Qui-Gon and Obi Wan from Star Wars Episode 1 - though with some variation to keep things interesting:



She uses one resonar with a shield, and rubs the crystal blade against a crystal embedded in the shield. The shape this makes is reminiscent of a guitar. From a gameplay perspective, this would make her blocking straightforward, and her attacks more basic than Savitr's (he'd hit once with each resonar with the Attack command); this makes her feel more like an apprentice, and him more like a master.

If both characters used these resonars, it'd mean that you could potentially find - or more sensibly, maybe Savitr could craft - others, which you could equip to either of Savitr's hands, or to Collie's weapon hand, whichever you preferred. I feel like the choice and variety there would be more appealing than just acquiring ever-more-powerful upgrades to very specific types of weapons (eg an axe-guitar).



They'd have names that make their crystalline nature more obvious.



And Collie might start with one which is pure, typeless, while Savitr's are more specifically elemental, again because she's just learning and he's been at this for a while.

(I've not even started sorting out equipment or skill or stat details yet!)

I also like this from my position as the creator, because it allows for fairly straightforward animations. Perhaps the biggest issue with Collie's axe-guitar concept (for example) was that transitioning between its weapon and instrument poses -



- would either require a delay, or an ugly animation cut, or something. It's the sort of thing which is easier to think about than it is to practically make!



That's all surface stuff, though; more interesting to me is the actual character of the characters... though I can't really talk about that too much without spoiling everything.

I spent yesterday writing one of these "Divine Scenes" things - like ∞ the one I had with an early version of Dayvha and Deugan a while back ∞ - to get a feel for their speaking styles, emoting, and how they'd interact with one another. It also hints at some story stuff (and is inappropriately set in the Dreamcave because I haven't made other environments yet) (also, there's no sound, and the poses aren't animated yet):



The game itself would begin with a battle against another character, but after that, a scene pretty similar in content to this one would play out. It introduces a lot of stuff about the world, story, and characters without being an unnatural expositional lecture, I feel (unlike much of the dialogue in the early sections of Octopath Traveler; "as you know, my lifelong friend who I'm currently having a fairly casual interaction with, here's my life story and motivation").

I find the "sometimes inappropriately sexual obsessive fangirl" and "eccentric ∞ dog ∞ person" angles for Collie amusing - especially as a contrast for the more serious and troubled Savitr - but I can also easily see that being annoyingly sexualised. That's not what I'm going for; personally I find sexy anime catgirls creepy, so I'd rather write a character who scratches herself and says she hates having baths or something. If you're familiar with the (also in my opinion creepy) ahegao thing though (is anyone not?), it's hard not to draw parallels between her PANTING DOGGY tongue lolling out and that. Hmm.

There's also the fact that since she's Savitr's apprentice, Collie would call him 'master', and I can easily imagine certain types of strongly politicised people taking issue with any female character which isn't a Strong Independent Woman Who Don't Need No Man, complaining about the power dynamics etc, even though he's irritated by it if anything and she doesn't behave in a remotely submissive way (as you can see from that scene). Still, I suppose I'm paranoid about this kind of thing because of how much politically-driven criticism I see of character depictions... and I have mental issues which exaggerate the perceived likelihood of (and sensitivity to) negative outcomes.



I still don't have a title for this game, but I haven't really given it any thought all week. I like Overture, suggested in a comment, as it means essentially the same thing as Prelude but seems superficially similar to Undertale, which this game has some parallels to (especially if Deltarune was planned to some degree before Undertale was released, much as Divine Dreams has been planned to some degree before I'll be releasing this, though I don't know if there are any connections between Undertale and Deltarune). Undertale might be a good comparison, as it (as far as I know; I still haven't actually played it) stands alone rather than necessitating a sequel, which is what I'm planning to do with this. Would it have worked as well if it were called "Deltarune: Undertale" or "Undertale: A Deltarune Story"?

But I'm far from decided. I still need to finalise a lot of plot details, too, though I feel I've got a backbone I'm quite pleased with. Perhaps I'll focus next week on further planning.

I haven't done any more marketing research either, since I've been busy making stuff. I need to get comfortable doing both simultaneously, though I'm still at the point where research is far more draining, so I avoid it if I want to actually get anything done.

Ideally I should be able to get to a point where I can make a Steam page and start posting publicly about the game in about a month, or less; maybe I'll aim for the end of July for that? Much of the game is already built, after all, so it shouldn't take too long. It'll be a while longer before I'm actually finished, but recent research suggested that you should spend months marketing, not just the final couple of weeks before release!





I've been posting about the process behind the development of these characters on ∞ my Patreon ∞ over the course of the week. It's nice to have something to post and somewhere to post it, though I also need to make these things public to promote the game, of course.

Patreon's tricky though because posting there never produces any growth. People who are already fans will see the posts there, but I've yet to get a new patron all week, and don't know if there's any chance of that count increasing until I actually release something. As I type this, it's at 49 patrons donating a total of $259 per month, which is about £210, ~20% of what I'd need for basic living costs. I appreciate it a lot and am incredibly grateful that people like my work enough to help me keep making it, and it's way better than some of the other Patreon users that I posted about recently, but it's still sadly a long way off actual sustainability. But it's a promising start!

I do feel though that I need to actually prove I'm worth supporting on Patreon by actually releasing something, which is why I like the thought of working on this shorter thing that I can conceivably finish by the end of the year! I'm also trying to make it worth supporting me by posting about the development process on there, since it's the best thing I could think to do, but I'm still figuring it all out.

And I still need to sort out some Discord stuff!!