We had a few questions come up on our Discord about the main character of Tempest Tower and their role in the world of Trip Space. It’s time to properly meet Fai.
The World of Trip Space
We can't properly introduce our main character without telling you a bit about the world that Tempest Tower takes place in. The concept of Trip Space was originally created as a backdrop for our First-Person Puzzle game, Spectacle. It is a surreal, abstract collection of floating islands and strange vistas that living creatures visit while dreaming, or meditating, or... by other means. Visitors to Trip Space manifest as Peepers (cute little eyeball creatures with wings), they are able to observe this strange world, but they rely on the native Trip Tenders to properly shepherd them through their experience.
Living and visiting Trip Space was always tranquil, but the recent invasion of Creepers has turned the experience into a nightmare! An ominous dark fog has engulfed the many islands of Trip Space and it feels impossible to stand against the horde that emerges from it. This is when Tempest Tower takes place.
Who is Fai
Fai is a Trip Tender, a native inhabitant of Trip Space and a caretaker of the world. Fai is a bit of an underachiever and definitely didn’t volunteer for the role of hero, they are underprepared and easily distracted, but they are also the only Trip Tender around.
With the player’s help, Fai will become a battle-hardened veteran, and an expert strategist. They will learn to build crazy contraptions as well as use the world of Trip Space against the invasive Creeper forces, and most importantly, they will save the many Peepers who still visit Trip Space.
Fun Fact: We used the name Fai, because it is pronounced similarly to the Danish word Fej, which means coward (and is also close to the word for sweep).
Early Concepts
The native inhabitants of Trip Space being lizard people was an idea that we carried over from Spectacle. We wanted to use the backdrop of Trip Space to embrace the world of conspiracy theories, so the native inhabitants had to be a cult-like group of lizards.
One of the first mechanics we discussed for Tempest Tower was the ability for our main character to Gust/Push/Waft at objects and enemies in the game. This led to very early concepts of a janitor/caretaker character that used a broom to clean objects and create gusts. We loved the idea of a caretaker character who is forced to go above and beyond to protect their world.
The idea of the broom becoming a multipurpose tool for building, painting, and digging came a bit later. The broom became such a key part of Fai’s silhouette that it didn’t make sense to see them use any other tools. Thankfully, the game is generally a bit goofy, so it doesn’t feel that strange to see a character digging up a plant with a floppy broom.
Now, drawing a concept and designing a character is one thing but of course we had to translate it to 3D, which is often a lot easier said than done!
From 2D to 3D
We were lucky enough to already have a base model to work from. Even though Spectacle was a First-Person game, we did have an “out of body” mechanic that meant we had to model our main character so they could be seen from any angle. This meant we had a place to start, but Fai was very much their own lizard so there was still a lot to do. The yellow rubber gloves really pop alongside Fai’s purple cloak and the trashcan backpack was just for added bounce and style.
The bouncy animation style is a mix of talented animation work from the HPY team and the Boing Kit plugin for Unity. We gained a lot of experience with expressive movement while working on our previous game, Time on Frog Island, and that did not go to waste here.
To get the perfect look for Fai in game, we are using ramped lighting with a custom ramp texture. We are using an emissive texture to get Fai’s eyes to glow and applying a matcap texture to enhance the soft lighting. An occlusion map is used, mainly to remove indirect lighting from Fai’s face so that the hood/cap can look like they are having a bigger impact on the lighting.
Get Involved!
We will have a public Demo releasing very soon, so you will be able to try out the Tutorial plus a special expanded level that we built to show off the intended difficulty of the full game.
If soon is too far away and you happen to live in Copenhagen, you can play the Tempest Tower Demo next week at Tomorrow’s Awesome Game Showcase! We hope to see you there.
