Hello Neighbor!
I’m here to bring you some information I’ve collected while observing our Mayor. Know that I’ve been watching him vigilantly – though from afar – for quite some time now. If there’s one thing I can be certain of is that he is a man of many faces.
To the rich of our Town, he is their friend. Always in their corner. Always ready to help them when they need him most. But I’ve watched him closely enough to know that he’s no knight in shining armor. There seems to be a strong correlation between the way our biggest business takes a hit in order to eventually be forced to ask the Mayor for a handout.
To the poor, he might as well be the Devil himself. He doesn’t just use fake taxes in order to raise his political capital. He actively uses deception and seemingly positive bills in order to drive some of our fellow neighbors to the brink of craziness. Some manage to stay afloat. Others have been forced to join the ever-growing community of the homeless.
I wouldn’t want to take a side in this political battle, but it does seem mighty suspicious that The Mayor ran unopposed for three election cycles in a row…
Twisting the inspirations
Our first idea for the Mayor was a “twisted version” of Canada's poster boy Prime Minister. Though when we started to get into the details of the character, the Mayor seemed to take on a life of his own. That said, visually we still kept some inspiration for the look of the character. That puffy hair was just too good of an image.
The Mayor, as a major character in the story, went through a couple of designs as we were still exploring the options for how our NPCs will look.
While we distanced ourselves so we didn’t just fall into making specific “Canada jokes”, we noticed that our Mayor became a more layered presence. After all, we will get to meet face-to-face with him in the game, so we couldn’t just rely on one inspiration, especially since the relationship the media has with political leaders is usually distant and cold. We wanted to get as close and personal as we could… while still infusing the character with as many real-world inspirations as possible, eventually looking at a vast range of European and American political figures.
In reality, we wanted to create him in a way that allows us to take inspiration from all over the world. We made him be a blank canvas… or rather an “orange-faced canvas” for us to paint on ;)
Look closely
There are a couple of visuals we wanted to stand out with our main antagonist.
First of all, his clothes clearly represent the classic color scheme politicians use in order to build an image of trust and respect. That said, we made some twists on the formula. The Mayor is now in his third term in office, so it seemed like an occasion to have some fun.
This is why we contrasted his seemingly nice smile with eyes that reveal his intelligence and cunning. The clean-cut suit is underscored by small details like a pot supporter pin that must be a way for him to score some easy points with the youth, a suspicious mark on his neck that might reveal he’s not always saying everything about himself, and a tie that’s a clear signal of how serious he really treats his office.
https://youtu.be/26w5WOWdr4Q
What other secrets does the Mayor have?
You’ll soon be able to find out more about the Mayor’s schemes and political plans. In the meantime, be sure to share your thoughts about him on Discord and our Steam community page. We hope you’ll share your ideas and feedback on how we can make The Mayor even more interesting.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1953600/discussions
That’s all our intelligence was able to gather for now,
Wingard out!