Hi everyone!
We're hard at work with development at the moment, but we wanted to invite you to see how our development has and is going through developer diaries. Over the coming months, we will be giving you insights into Elsie, from mechanics to animation to enviroments and of course, characters.
Today we'd like to give a spotlight to our protagonist and namesake of the game, Elsie. But first, let's introduce ourselves.
We are Knight Shift Games
A small indie game development team from Miami, FL established in 2016 by Alejandro Remior. The team is composed primarily of Hispanic immigrants or first Hispanic American team members, and we try to sprinkle some of our cultures across our projects. Early on, the team began working on small scale games and game jam projects, trying to learn the tools well enough to develop something commercially viable. After a couple of years, KSG began working on the first iteration of Elsie. After showcasing Elsie for the first time at PAX South 2018, the team took a small hiatus to handle some personal issues.
After the hiatus, the team came together and reached out to some developer friends from the Miami game dev scene to join the team and help with reviving Elsie. Once these new team members joined the project, it was decided that the Elsie project would require almost a total rework of look and feel. This led to the project being transformed into its current incarnation: a neon-drench, hyperkinetic, roguelike action platformer.
Character Spotlight: Elsie; Art & Animation development
One thing everyone always asks us is, “Where did the name Elsie come from?” A small bit of trivia: two of the first robots ever created were named Elsie and Elmer and we were not going to name our game Elmer. Elsie has gone through some radical transformations over the years. What started off as a week-long project has turned into almost 8 years. Elsie began as a side scroller action platformer with a very different style and gameplay loop.
At the root of the gameplay was always the run-and-gun action. Ever so stylish, the first version of Elsie sported a blue trench coat, short black hair, some scientist-looking gloves and a small green gun. Originally designed by Matthew Martinez back in 2016. Over his tenure as the main artist on Elsie, the design of the character changed a little bit. Mainly touch up on certain details like her gun, and updating some animations. After the project went on hiatus, Elsie did not make a revival until late 2018.
It was October of 2018 that the team decided to pick up Elsie once again. This time, the team was joined by two new members that were part of the local game development community. Pedro Guerra joined up first, initially as someone to help us gain more online presence and help market the game. His main stipulation was that we changed how the entire game looked, as to him, it needed something more, something extra to give it that flare. Once agreed upon, the second member, Bryant Chavarriaga joined the team as art director.
The first thing that Bryant created for the project was a complete overhaul of Elsie. From head to toe, she was reimagined with the style and attitude that we felt really embodied our character, as well as our team's new groove. We reimagined what her color scheme would be, gave each detail on her a sort of backstory, redid her weapons, and abilities. It really was like a brand new character, only the same in name.
Starting from the top, she was given a hat with a blue visor because let's face it, everybody likes hats, but her signature look is given by her horns, which channel her power and light up or generate lightning during different animations.
Her jacket has a small backstory: it was given to her by some of her more revered group of heroes (which you’ll eventually meet in the game)!
You can’t have a badass-looking character without some hot pink fingerless gloves. Her animations also show her different quirks of character. Such as her super cool lightning gate digital dash, or her fiery dive attack.
Overall, we are quite happy with this design, and it really directed the rest of the game’s style. Now, almost 4 years later, we have some final touches to Elsie’s look. Here is a sneak peek!
We hope you enjoyed this deep-dive into who we are and our protagonist Elsie. If you haven't already, try out our demo and don't forget you can wishlist Elsie!
We'll be back with another Developer Diary in the coming weeks, but in the meantime if there's anything you might like us to cover in a future diary, please drop a suggestion in the Community Hub.
Until next time!
- Knight Shift Games & Playtonic Friends