The game has evolved a lot from whence it started. For fun, let’s dive into some old concepts. Don’t worry, they won’t be spoilerific since the current story has evolved far away from what will be shown.
Note: Chinese Translation of this blog post is available! (Courtesy of Baojie)
The First Step
It starts with some programmer art:
(the weird trees above are giant hairs)
From the get-go, we knew we wanted the player to feel like a microscopic entity exploring the inside of something colossal. Something about the interplay between the small and the big just fascinates and captures the imagination.
(“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” – one of my old favorites)
Organs naturally lend themselves to uniquely themed-dungeons, and the body’s internal features fit neatly into the “lock and key” gameplay of a Metroidvania. “Bone blocks” form hard barriers – requiring missiles to break. “Fat blocks” are gooey and resistant to blunt force – they’d need to be frozen first. Swimming through the Lava of the stomach requires the player to don a special suit, and so forth. An elemental system was forming – one perhaps a bit more interesting and exotic than usual flair.
(originally, the stomach had green acid, but the bright green felt too garish and tired the eyes, so we reverted to a lava-themed stomach instead. The tried and true biomes persist for a reason)
Nature vs Metal
“Instead of a metallic ship being taken over by fleshy aliens, what if it was a fleshy ship being taken over by metallic aliens?” Whales with their otherworldly wails (heh) have long storied our literature – they would serve as the flesh ship. The main villain would be a living metal virus – a corruptor that made things metallic.
(For a while, the villain was internally referred to as “SHODAN” from the game System Shock)
The whale’s immune defense response – white blood cells – made for natural enemies. Story ideas started to form about an inner war between the Whale’s immune system and the Metallic Virus’s infected army. The player would be caught in the middle.
Introducing “Skells”
The White Blood Cells were named “Skells” due to its similarity to the words “skellington”, “shell”, and “cell”. The Skells sported bony exterior armor – I liked the gameplay potential of fighting partially armored enemies with clear strong areas to avoid and weak areas to target. It’d require the player to think about their attack angles.
(another early art conceptualized the Skells as ant-like)
As we added more to the skell class monsters, we realized their design was all over the place. Some looked like bugs, others looked like dinosaurs, and one even looked like an otherworldly humanoid 🤔
Skell Rules
We needed to set the rules for what a Skell could and couldn’t be. Like a game of musical chairs, whatever category the Skells occupied, that would rule out that category for others. If the Skells were dinosaurs, non-skell dinosaurs shouldn’t exist. And if the Skells were bugs, non-skell bugs shouldn’t exist. Otherwise, the design language for creatures would get too muddy and the game world’s internal logic would falter. So, some rules were set. Skells would:
have no eyes (reinforces they are hive-minded)
sport white exoskeletons (and distinct purple skin)
generate barrier reefs (think platelets)
be Reptilian
We chose Reptiles in the end – they looked cooler. The decision was also aided a little by the fact that we had good dinosaur sound effects on hand.
Bugs still exist in the game – they just won’t be Skells. See this creature before and after “deskellification”.
(You might be thinking – why would a whale have dinosaur-themed white blood cells? Don’t worry, we’ll answer that)
Is there a doctor onboard?
With the game taking place inside a giant ailing whale, it seemed natural to make the game about curing the whale. The whale’s immune defense response was targeting all things metal – the player’s metal space ship was mistakenly targeted as a result – stranding them. Through curing the whale, the player could secure their escape.
The original designs for NPCs you’d meet on your quest were more doctor-themed. They all sported lab coats. Here’s a look at some early designs:
(Finn, Gort, Irene, and Dewber. One of them only pretends to be a doctor. But who?)
Closing remarks
As these things usually go, the story that we started with has long since evolved into something else entirely. We abandoned the idea of a Metal Virus main villain, and we moved past more literal interpretations of organs – too fleshy and bumpy felt creatively limiting after a point.
(this Titan stomach in Xenoblade 2 shows there’s a lot of ways to interpret what an organ could look like)
We kept the Skell Dinos 💪
Looking back at these early drafts, I’m reminded of how nonlinear game development is. Ideas morph, collide, get tossed, and sometimes circle back in unexpected ways. All part of the journey.
Thanks for reading! The next dev update will land at the end of September.