Welcome to Crawlyard Devlogs! We are steadily working on the game every single day, and we feel like sharing our creative process might prove to be interesting to our players and fellow developers alike. So, aside from posting progress reports and important public announcements, we'd also like to give you a glimpse into the world behind the stage.
Pretty fitting for a game that takes place in theatre, isn't it~
Early character designs
Our Mansion attracts unusual people, but for their quirks to truly stand out they have to be offset by more or less regular characters, too. At the beginning, the proportion of "normal" to "abnormal" was roughly 1:1, but the deeper we dive into it, the weirder our designs become.
We spent quite some time figuring out the best art style that wouldn't collide with our 3d visuals while being competent enough to stand on its own, attract attention and tell a story just as well as pages upon pages of text could. So until we reveal our finalized versions in due time, please check these earlier sketches out.
Barmaid
The Barmaid is meant to be a strong and confident woman – not without her share of peculiar worries, of course, or she wouldn't have ended up in the Mansion. She looks good both in traditional feminine and unisеx clothing, too, and we considered experimenting with exotic accessories and tattoos at one point as well.
Still, she is firmly placed on the "normal" side of our cast, so going for more familiar shapes and textures proved to be a better choice. This sketch list is already much closer to what we'll see in the end – just a few stylistic touches, and we're good.
Puppeteer
But if there is one single character who represents the "abnormal" side the best, it would be the Puppeteer. A person so mysterious their gender, race and even humanity are a tough puzzle to solve, we can clearly tell our artists had a lot of fun coming up with striking silhouettes and memorable visual details.
The Puppeteer is all about their love for dolls and masks – to the point where they consider a doll transformation for themselves, too. Just you wait until you discover the way they emote when their face is hidden securely behind an elaborate mask!
Afterword
That's it for now! We will be back with another blog pretty soon – there are some UI updates and really cool visual effects almost ready to be presented to the public. Thank you for following our game, and see you soon!
Scriptwriter, signing out.
Meanwhile, you can check additional updates on our SNS:
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