Hi everyone! It's been an intense few months preparing a demo for various game festivals, but with that out of the way I'm excited to get back to our usual schedule. This month I'll talk about the unique characters that will populate your squads in every playthrough of Mars Tactics.
I mentioned in the first dev log that creating memorable stories is one of the three pillars of this game. And to me a good story begins with good characters. That's why all members of your campaign -- soldiers, researchers, engineers -- will have unique faces and personalities. And the same goes for enemies and NPCs too.
There Are Billions
Both the Labor and Capital campaigns are procedural, and my hope is you'll play them many times. It would be boring to see the same mugs over and over, so I've put a lot of work into creating visual variety and authenticity in how each character looks.
The result is a procedural portrait system which contextually combines facial features and shades them for each skin pigment. The current pre-alpha build already supports 12 billion unique faces. When adding skin-tone and hair-color variations, that jumps to 1.9 trillion. Of course, a huge number is meaningless if the faces look similar. My hope is you'll feel a tinge of personality in every portrait.
With the click of a button, a hundred souls were born for this dev log.
More Than Just a Pretty Face
Besides unique faces, every character is created with a bio. A Canadian college dropout who came to Mars looking for adventure. A Japanese construction worker hoping to make a quick buck to pay off gambling debts. A South African mercenary trying to escape her past and her demons.
These backstories are more than just window dressing. By default, every character is created with the same stats, but their nationalities and personality quirks will affect their progression and generate unique events during every campaign. Expect more details about this in an upcoming dev log about unit progression.
The allure of adventure and a fat paycheck brought people from all walks of life to Mars.
Life on Mars
Personalities aren't static. Each character will evolve depending on your actions during the campaign. As soldiers get injured, their faces will reflect every bruise, gash, tear, and wound. Over time, some injuries will become permanent scars. What's more, pulling off special achievements will unlock special accessories such as tattoos, hats, jewelry, augmentations and others. And as each unit gains seniority, their looks will upgrade in-line with their rank and occupation.
Life is hard on Mars, and then you die. (Unless you develop augmentations, overthrow the elites and establish a new vision for humanity on the red planet.)
Tactics RPG?
Mars Tactics isn't really designed as role-playing game, but for those who want to follow every character's progress in detail they can do so through the Story screen. Here you can see each person's achievements and jot down additional notes if you want. After each playthrough, you can review stories of your entire roster (both dead and alive) to relive the memories.
This UI is still a WIP. Expect more icons and details in the final design to liven up the Story screen.
And of course I know players like to fill their squads with friends, family and their favorite politicians. Mars Tactics let's you tweak each face, name, nationality and gender to your liking. (However, merit-based accessories and facial features will be limited to characters who have unlocked them.)
Animations
Last but not least, expect each face to be animated. Below is a preview made by manipulating sprite positions and rotations, but the next step is hand-drawn frame animations to bring each character to life.
Faces react to in-game actions (missing a shot, discovering an enemy, etc) but also to your mouse movements.
None of this would have been possible without Han Pham Nguyen, the artist drawing these portraits for me. Working within my tight requirement of just 48 by 48 pixels per profile, Han has created attractive faces that span the globe and cover every race. Check out his Twitter for more of his work.
Well, that's it for this month. Thanks for reading! If you're looking for more regular updates, check out my Twitter and Discord for more WIP screenshots and videos.
Yuji Nakamura