Prototype Zero

Prototype Zero is a monster training & battling adventure game played in the real world. Scan the world around you for specters, track them down, and capture them to create your ultimate specter team. Become the world's best Sweeper and help defend the Earth from the Specter Invasion!

[prototypezeroapp]

Game Design Discussion : Removing Unlimited Heal @ Base

In our next update, which we'll be version 0.6.1, there's going to be one big change to the feature of the game and since I foresee that this might be something a lot of our players are going to feel strongly (like negatively) about, I decided to do a proper blog post detailing our thought process.

What's the change?

Basically this is the release notes that will come with the new version:

====== Release Note - version 0.6.1 ======

[change] Healing items are now more effective and are cheaper to purchase.

[change] All healing items are now unlocked at lower ranks than previously.

[change] Capture item price has increased from 3 Spectral Particles to 10.

[change] Unlimited heals at the base has been removed in favor of cheaper healing items to encourage playing on the go instead of just playing at home.

The subject of this post is the last (emphasized) point of the release note.

What is this feature?

For those not familiar with the game, Prototype Zero is a location-based game where players capture and battle monsters that they encounter on the real world map, to move the player has to walk around in the real world.

As the player use their monsters to fight, the monsters gets injured and needs to be healed. The player has several choices:

Use healing items that can be purchased at the store or dropped during missions.

Use a healing charge (the player has 3 charges that refills at 1 charge every 30 minutes.)

If they run out of heal charges, they have to pay to heal.

If the player is near their home or "base" they can heal unlimited times without any penalty and does not need to wait for charges to refill.

This last feature is what will be removed.

Why was the feature created in the first place?

So before we explain our changes, it's best to give the reason why the current feature works the way it does.

I think when we first implemented this feature we didn't really think it through properly. The main reasons we wanted to have this feature were:

Location-specific benefits - Since this was a location-based game, we wanted to provide benefits to players at certain locations on the map and providing healing stations seemed like a cool idea so allowing players to set up a base that gives heals sounded like a great step in that direction.

Allowing players to have the option to play as long as they'd like in one spot BUT have the option to play with a more fun + more rewarding way by moving around.

Although this feature achieved those 2 goals, it had a number of really negative unintended consequences which makes the game just not fun to play.

Unintended consequences of this feature

We can say that this feature was very successful, too successful in fact, that it caused a lot of unintended consequences:

It turns out when you give players the option to be lazy but bored vs exiting/rewarding but require more work... players tend to choose less work but boring most of the time, which is not what we want from a game at all.

Healing at the Base was such a no brainer that people who play the game away from the Base was almost non-existant which really defeats the purpose of a location-based game. (Features that don't ask players to make meaningful choices are usually not good in games.)

Playing missions is viewed as tedius since it requires players to move away from the base. Most players will walk out for missions and walk back home to heal, and that was very annoying for players. (Since healing at Base seem like something they would be stupid not to use if it was there.)

Players got really bored since they insisted on playing only at the base, which means they will only encounter the same monsters all the time since they're in the same location. Combine this with the fact that heals are unlimited, players can keep grinding in one place forever, which they tend to do and get bored of the repetition.

Nobody was really using Healing items since they could just exit from combat and use the free heal at the Base instead of buying healing items so they just pile up in the inventory.

Inflation. Since nobody was buying healing items, there was no outlet for the currency that they were getting after every mission and battle... so the currency became useless and just pile up in player accounts.

How we are fixing this

Now we also realize that the reasons for the problems highlighted above doesn't only stem directly from the heal feature alone, it's also because healing items are pretty expensive and they are not very powerful. Often healing items don't heal enough to warrant buying it.

So with this change, we're doing a few things to address all the problem points:

Removing Unlimited Heals

This is the most important change.

Players will get out more. Without unlimited heals at the base, it will make no difference between playing at work, while out with friends, or at home, which should increase the diversity of location at which players play. This will cause players to play the game closer to how we intended the game to be played.

Healing items become more appealing. As heals are now limited by charges, healing items become much more important and thus would be used more often. Players earn currency by fighting monsters, then use that currency to purchase healing items which can be used to heal their combat team to continue fighting.

Reduce inflation. This should reduce the number of healing items being stockpiled as well as reduce inflation of the currency.

Making healing items more cost efficient

Previously healing items were very expensive and heals very little. With the removal of unlimited heals, we wanted to make sure we're compensating that change with a better improvement to the healing items.

Now healing items will be cheaper per HP that it heals. Hopefully that will make the healing items much much more attractive to purchase.

Making powerful healing items available sooner

Healing items are unlocked as the player increase in rank, and previously powerful healing items were being unlocked too slowly, leaving powerful players stuck not being able to buy better healing items even when they wanted to. Then by the time they can purchase them, the healing items are no longer powerful enough to be attractive.

We've made changes to when healing items unlock so that players get acccess to powerful healing items sooner.

Conclusion

So that's why we're removing this feature, hopefully this post gives you a good idea of why we think it's better for the game to have this feature removed before we can come up with something else that would be a better addition to the game.

Do share your thoughts with us via [email protected] or on twitter @GoPrototypeZero! We'd love to hear from you.

What do you think about this up-coming change?

[prototypezeroapp]

Zodiac Character Design Recap

Hey guys! We're finally done with all the design posts for the Western Zodiac characters!

After cleaning and adjusting each character to get them to have similar feel to give them the feeling of being in the same "Set", here are all 12 Zodiacs, enjoy!

If you'd like to read the design process of each individual characters please find the individual posts below!

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini

Sagittarius

Leo

Scorpio

Cancer

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Cancer : The Crab

This is the 12th post in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini

Sagittarius

Leo

Scorpio

Cancer... sigh... where to begin. Cancer was probably one of the hardest character to design in this entire series. Throughout this entire experience, we often struggle with how to make a crab look really cool.

As usual the initial requirements for the character is not complex:

The character is of a crab.

The character is a water element.

That's admittedly not much to go on, but with that @pichapio created the very first draft of the character:

Not that this didn't look great as a drawing, however the character looks too normal. This version simply looks like a crab and is not exceptional. It just doesn't compare to the other Zodiacs.

So we tried another option:

This is not much of an improvement from the previous version. It still looks too normal. Let's try a few more options:

Hmmm these certainly are an improvement over the previous versions, but we're still not very sure. So we pick the best option there and added some color to see how it would look:

Huh, that actually looks pretty good. After adding color, the character became more alive and less generic. Based on that, we decided to go ahead and try finalizing this version to see what we have:

What do you guys think?! Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero.

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Scorpio : The Scorpion

This is the 11th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini

Sagittarius

Leo

Scorpio was another character that was comparatively simple compared to the other characters. Here's the original starting point for the character:

The character is a scorpion or should be symbolically a scoripion.

The character should be of Dark Element.

So with that @pichapio created the very first draft:

This is a good start, but the proportions are a bit off here. The character is a bit bunched up and looks slightly distorted. However, it is a good general direction, so we decided to try a color test before doing a new sketch to get a feel of what the character would look like with color:

Not bad, the color choice does make the character look more interesting and dangerous/poisonous. Now we have to address the distortion and proportion issue, so @pichapio went to work with a new sketch:

MUCH better! The proportion, pose, profile of the character looks so much stronger. So we went ahead and finalize this version and added the color:

What do you guys think?! Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero.

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Leo : The Lion

This is the 10th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini

Sagittarius

Leo was relatively simple compared to our other characters. Our initial set of requirements were:

The character is a lion.

The character should be of Light Element.

So with that @pichapio created the very first draft:

Hmmmm this version looks way too normal. It just looks like a lion. It doesn't have the godly presence that a Zodiac character needs.

Based on that feedback, a new sketch was made:

Perfect! We think this sketch works very well for Leo so we went ahead and try out the color:

Looking pretty good. With the sketch and color approved, we went ahead and finalized the character. This is the result:

What do you guys think?! Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero.

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Sagittarius : The Centaur

This is the 9th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini

It took us a while to get Sagittarius right, I think this is the first time our resident illustrator @pichapio had to draw a half human / half horse hybrid, haha. In the end, though, we got something we're really happy with! This is how the design of Sagittarius started:

The character is half-human and half-horse.

The character is an archer

That was pretty much the only requirements at the start, so from there @pichapio got to work and created the very first draft:

Not bad! This first version looked alright but it was missing a few things:

It did not have enough feeling of godly-ness that should be associated with the Zodiacs.

Since we didn't decide on an element, the character has no element associated with it, making it look quite "normal".

Based on that we decided to go with the Lightning element for Sagittarius, and here's the 2nd draft result:

The addition of the lightning element gives the character a lot more poersonality! Maybe let's see how the character looks once we add some color?

Hmmmmmmmm somehow once the character is colored, it doesn't look quite right:

The proportions are a bit off, the character looks small and short.

The helment with spikes doesn't look as nice as the first version.

The bow is probably too big.

The color feels a bit flat.

Still missing the Godly feeling.

Back to the drawing board... another rough drawing:

Much better!

The armor looks clean and powerful.

The character looks much more elegant instead of rounded.

Based on all the feedback, @pichapio went back to work on a completely new version that incorporates all the feedback:

Perfect! The character looks very powerful and elegant! I think @pichapio nailed it with this version. The only feedback we had at this point is:

The arrow should be on top of the hand that's holding the bow.

So with that, he went ahead and finalize the character art, and this is the result:

KABOOM! Haha, we love it! What do you guys think?! Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero.

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Gemini : The Twins

This is the 8th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

Capricorn

Gemini was very fun to work on since there's quite a number of possibilities that we could have gone with. When we started these were the requirements:

The character is 2 sides of the same coin.

Split personality?

A set of twins?

Since there are 2 characters inside, we should use 2 elements just like Pisces For Gemini, Dark and Light element seems appropriate.

From here we let @pichapio take a swing at the first draft!

First version seems alright but maybe a bit too stiff with all the armor. I think we can still explore more versions, how about something along the line of split personality, with 1 half being dark and 1 half being light?

Well that actually looks pretty cool so we might go back to it, however, another idea the team has is the fairy version. Let's try that out too:

Nice! Between the 3 different versions, the team prefers the last version the most. We like the friendly, cute yet awesome feel that the character gives off. The feeling we get is that they may look cute but they can kick ass. So we went ahead with this version to clean up and finalize.

And this is the result!

What do you guys think?! Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero.

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Capricorn : The Enki

This is the 7th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Taurus

This week we worked on Capricorn! This one took quite some time to get right. The initial requirement for Capricorn was:

Goat with fish tail.

We decided that the element of the character should be Dark.

Of course it should be godly, powerful, and mystical.

So with that @pichapio got to work and made this very first sketch:

Hmmmmmm this version didn't feel right to us. It felt a bit "too much" the fins and everything made the character feel too heavy and complicated. We wanted to see another version to explore a simpler and cleaner version:

Ah, much cleaner, but it seems too similar to a demonic goat rather than a godly one. The tail is also not a canonical Capricorn tail, so we gotta fix that.

Much better! The character is looking closer to the Capricorn that is visually distinctive and recognizable. However:

The large horn unbalances the character, it feels too tall and really cumbersome.

The tail is too thick and is visually awkward.

We have to adjust those but before that we decided to do a color test to see what color we would use for this character:

I guess we decided to adjust the tail while we were at it, haha. The color looks great so we will likely go with this color scheme... but the tail is now looking awkward, it should really not be in that position... The horn definitely looks too large. The character looks really top heavy with it.

Based on all that feedback, a new sketch was made:

Nice! The horn now balances with the tail. The tail is now correctly resting on the ground instead of floating in the air! With the detail on the horns, the character looks so much better yet isn't too large. This is the version we decided to use for our final design. So at the end we have:

What do you guys think? Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero!

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Taurus : The Bull

This is the 6th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces

Hey! We’re back with another Zodiac character design! This time it’s Taurus, the resident Bull!

This is another character that is relatively easier for us. We started with a few requirements:

The character is an Earth Sign.

The character is a bull.

So very quickly @pichapio got to work on the first draft:

This is a good starting point. Based on this version we had some feedback:

This is too normal looking.

It just looks like a normal bull, so we need something else.

Does not look powerful nor godly.

We need to incorporate its element into the design more.

So basically… the feedback was “Need more awesome.” Vague, definitely, haha, but @pichapio got to work on the next version:

A huge improvement! The character now has more personality and interesting traits. We decided to continue with this version and do a color test.

Since the character is currently black and white, it was not easy to tell whether once it’s colored the character would still look interesting. So we went ahead and added color:

We’re getting very close now. The character has interesting contrast and a very powerful presence, the way a Zodiac character should be. Now we just need to add some more PIZZAZZ!

Here’s how the Taurus looks now, we think it looks fantastic! What do you think? Let us know on twitter @GoPrototypeZero!

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Pisces : The Fish

This is the 5th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Libra

Pisces, relatively, is probably one of the characters that we had the least problems with. The initial requirements just looks like this:

The character are 2 fish.

We could play with having 2 elements.

Look powerful.

Pretty simple right? So, as usual, @pichapio got to work. Here's his very first draft:

Not bad, pretty spot on actually, if a little bit weak looking. Not wanting to just setting for the first draft, he went to work to create more sketches. The idea was to make the character look more powerful if possible:

All of these designs look pretty badass, but we have to choose just one! So the process of elimination began:

Top Left : Something looks a bit off... not sure why but the sharks look a bit awkward.

Bottom Left : Probably the most boring of the 4 IMO.

Bottom Right : The sharks look amazing, however I think it makes the character look way over the top. If it was a character with just 1 fish, a shark might work. Having two sharks felt a bit too much.

That left us with the top right version, which we all agreed fits the theme very well. Not too over the top and looks powerful. But what elements would they be?

This involves gameplay, but we thought it would be cool to have a character with abilities that complement itself so Lightning + Water seems like a good choice, the water ability could cause the enemy to be weak to lightning, then the Lightning side could take over from there.

So this gave us our final design:

What do you think?

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Libra : The Scales

This is the 4th in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Aquarius

Welcome back to another Zodiac character design post where we examine the process we go through when designing our characters!

This week we just finished (hot off the press) the design for Libra so let's take a look at how she came to be.

Relative to the other characters we've shown so far, Libra was relatively less complex. This is a list of things we wanted to see in the character from the start:

The character should be holding the scale, an important trait of the character.

We felt the character should be female since that seems to be the general theme of the other humanoid characters within the Zodiac set and would be nice to round out the set with another female character.

The character should seem to be passing judgement so a sword seems to be appropriate.

After a nailing down those requirements @pichapio got to work and quickly produced the very first sketchs:

As usual, from these early sketches we could get a better idea of where we want to go with the character. Additional thoughts that came from these sketches were:

Making the character blind seems to fit her thematically very well as justice is blind, it does not care about how you look. So we definitely want to keep this aspect of the character.

The current sketches seem to be in a wrong proportions. We definitely don't want the character to be a kid. The proportion needs to be more realistic.

We're not sure about her dress so we should probably try versions without the dress as well to see how that looks.

The crown feels a little too much, makes the character too top-heavy.

The wings are questionable as well... not very sure about that so we probably want to try a few more versions with and without wings.

So based on that, we hashed out a few more quick sketches to explore more versions:

Hmmmmm we're getting very close here:

Definitely not the bottom left version. Confirms we want the female versions.

Showing her legs like the bottom right makes her profile seem very top-heavy since the legs are very thin compared the top half (which has the scale AND the sword.) So balancing the bottom half of her character with a dress seem to work best. The cape didn't help... not sure why... maybe it doesn't feel as elegant.

We decided to try to combine the 2 on the top but without the crown.

So here's what we have once we combined the top 2 options:

Perfect! I think when we got here we felt that we've got the look that we wanted. So @pichapio went ahead and cleaned it up and refined the details:

Once we got here, we were quite satisfied even though we're not sure about the wings on her head and back (maybe they're too much.) But we went ahead and added color to her:

And that's how we arrived at our current final version! I hope that was interesting and insightful! Let us know what you think of the design on twitter!

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Aquarius : The Water Carrier

This is the 3rd in our Zodiac character design series! If you like this post, you can check out our other Zodiac characters:

Virgo

Aries

Phew, after a week-long break for Thailand's Songkran celebration (Thailand's new year celebration + water festival) we're back working on the Zodiac Characters!

And it's fitting that after a water festival that we worked on Aquarius, the resident water splasher.

So this is what our Water Carrier looks like now. She's probably the most difficult Zodiac character we had to design (at least we spent really long iterating on her.)

Our only requirement at the beginning was that the character must be visually identifiable as Aquarius. Or at least if we say that this was Aquarius, people would say "Oh yeah, of course!" rather than "What, that looks nothing like Aquarius."

Arguably that isn't the most specific description but it gives plenty of room for @pichapio to explore and get started. So he dove right in and sketched a quick first version to figure out the direction that would work:

The very first sketch of Aquarius. Nowhere near the final product at all is it?

OK, so we now have something to use to start a conversation.

Based on that first sketch we were certain of a few things:

Aquarius should be more human, rather than an anthrophomorphic animal.

The team prefers that the character should be female.

Pouring of water seems like a must.

Although, that's still not very specific, we can start the iteration process:

Female, elvish version sketch and rough color.

We can then also explore more poses.

Cleaned up version of 2 of the poses.

After sketching out these rough poses, we still don't find one that really clicked to us so we spent some more time to do even more sketches.

But this time we decided to try to get some feedback from the community to see what would feel most Aquarius-like:

Pose sketches shared for a poll on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Internally the team was split quite evenly between 1, 3 and 4. However, after putting it up for votes, the results became a clearer split between #1 and #4 so we went ahead and try to give them both a rough color to see which one we ultimately prefer.

Hmmm, first attempt at coloring #1.

Something got lost in moving from sketch to the colored version. This colored version did not work for me at all and I gave a few feedback:

She definitely needs to be holding a vase if she is to be using this pose.

She's way too blue... the water hair isn't working, it looks solid and unnatural.

Her clothing is awkward, visibly having under garments does not work look very good. We can do it more tastefully. The clothing does not need to be blue, or water, or transparent.

The water flowing from her hands is much shorter than the sketch version. This covers her knees and her legs don't extend down below the water, making her look extremely short... that or she's kneeling, both are no good.

Her skin has a purplish hue, doesn't seem to be working... and the blue body art as well.

Based on the feedback for pose #1, the rough color version of #4 was made:

Still don't think using water for hair looks good here.

The water can be improved... I think at this point we decided to try a different take on the water. What if they looked like star-dust instead? That would also fit with the Zodiac / Star-sign theme.

Her dress patterns here makes the character looks too busy so we'll probably opt for a cleaner dress.

The type of vase doesn't seem to work. Maybe we'll try a more round shape.

OK... added a vase, changed the hair and adjusted the dress.

Better... but definitely still need a lot of improvements:

The water still isn't working... We should really try that star-dust idea.

The vase and the way she holds it is not natural. We'll visit the round shaped vase instead.

The hair's better... but still looks unnatural.

Her skin is still purple... we'll use a natural skin color instead.

The blue patterns on her arms and face should be removed.

The way she positions her legs is unnatural and isn't normally how people hold heavy objects, so we'll adjust that.

OK... so based on these feedback, we try to do pose #4 again:

MUCH better.

The vase and the star-dust looks much better than water. It also gave a very cosmic feel to the character.

The hair is much improved.

Her legs still looks awkward... nobody stands like that while holding a vase. (It looks like her knee is twisted... and she shouldn't be on her tip toe.)

The chest portion of her dress actually looks like she's not wearing a dress... definitely need fixing.

Her right arm should be adjusted so her elbow is nearer the center of her chest instead of by her side.

So next iteration:

Better. Same comment regarding her legs still stands though.

At this point, it's pretty clear to us that pose #4 feels superior to pose #1 so we decided to only take pose #4 further and complete the character with that pose.

So based on all the feedback given, we have this:

What a huge difference from how she started! This is definitely the direction we want to move so we went ahead and start finalizing the character, which give us what we have now:

What do you think?

[prototypezeroapp]

WOW!! I came across this blog accidentally but I'm glad I did! This game looks incredible so far and totally worth all the hard work you guys must've put into it!! Absolutely fantastic! Will the game be available worldwide, when it is released?

Hi! Thank you very much for the kind words! I’m glad to hear that the game resonates with you, it really helps motivate us :DYes, the game will be available world wide, but we’re planning a smaller test / beta launch in smaller countries first (to make sure we get rid of major bugs before we do a huge launch.)We haven’t announced this but we have a beta signup form for when we do an internal beta. We’d be happy if you want to sign up at our website [http://www.prototypezeroapp.com](http://www.prototypezeroapp.com) and we’ll let you know when the beta is ready!You can also follow us on twitter [@GoPrototypeZero](https://twitter.com/GoPrototypeZero) and Facebook here [https://www.facebook.com/prototypezeroapp](https://www.facebook.com/prototypezeroapp) to send us messages!

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Aries: The Ram

Welcome to our second Zodiac character design series!. Last week we gave details on how we arrived at our Virgo design, so if you're interested, you can check that out!

This week we did a bunch of work on on varius characters but the one that's furthest along now is Aries.

Unlike Virgo, Aries did not go through as much of a transformation through the different versions as the requirements were much more specific:

It's a ram. (or is it?)

It is of the Fire element.

As a Zodiac, it should look majestic and powerful, like if it existed, it should look like the leader of the heard.

These are its initial line-work design:

First sketch of Aries

This version actually looks pretty good, but it looks too 'normal'. It just look like a normal ram... and the fire element isn't really showing through... so we tried another take.

Second go

Hmmm.... This version is no good... it looks much weaker than the first version. The fire on its neck looks very abnormal... a bit flat... the horn doesn't look as good as the first version. We also feel that the pose is very stiff and uninteresting. Let's try to improve it some more.

Trying out another pose and fixing the fire on the neck

Enlarging the horns to make it feel more intimidating

The pose feels more dynamic, so we felt that this was a good improvement. The character doesn't look awkward anymore. Although it does still look a bit weak. Maybe we could fix it by adding color and see how it looks... so we went ahead and color it up.

First rough colored version

Huh... very orange... the shading needs some work, and something else is not quite right. The fire and the horns and the pose are 'ok' but the character feels very uncomfortable and cramped... compared to other zodiac characters we have designed, this character also looks small. Maybe the silhouette can be improved. It could be the way the body is mostly hidden behind its firy mane. We're not 100% sure that this is the best we could do with this character so we decided to try going back to the drawing board and draw a bunch more pencil sketches to make sure we're not short changing ourselves and settle on a non-optimal design:

Multiple sketches in an attempt to explore all pose and forms.

Much better. Actually all of the above sketches are better than what we had earlier.

Basically we toned down the fire around the neck and made the body visible. This helps free up a lot of space for a nicer silhouette plus we also adjusted the anatomy such that it does not reflect the real anatomy of a ram. It actually looks more like a muscular hound now (which in effect makes it a lot more powerful looking.)

In the end we decided to go with the pose on the top right... it may be a more stiff pose, but it looks more like a proud alpha male rather than an overly agressive one shown be the other poses. It feels like it doesn't have to be 'showy' or try too hard to look powerful, it just IS powerful.

So we went ahead and gave it a rough color to see what it would look like:

Rough color version of the most recent work

Looking much better than the first version already. However there are still a bit of issue with the way the color was applied.

The aura / fire outline on the horns messes up the silhouette quite a bit so we should tone that down.

The fire / steam / smoke that was shown to be coming out of its chest is not apparent here, and I thought that was a pretty nice part of the sketch, so we will probably add that in.

The V symbol on its head is too large.

The horns look pretty thin, we'll probably have to adjust the shading to make it look a bit rounder / thicker.

The horns are not quite in the right perspective relative to the head. The horns seem straight on / flat to the screen, whereas the head is turned slightly to the left side of the screen so the horn should be tilted a bit in that direction.

As you can see, at this point is more tiny adjustments since we're now happy with the over all look.

Here's what it looks like now:

Current rough color version

Much better. But even now it's not perfect. There are minor adjustments that we can still make to it to make it look better:

The horn could look much hotter, cracked, lined with glowing likes, like it's made from molten rock.

The line on its forehead could be improved. (We think it should be thinner, and the V wider... more like this \/ than V)

The fire coming out of its chest should be adjusted a bit, it's obstructing the character's silhouette.

More details can be added to the fur and body.

Other than those we're quite happy with this general design. What do you think?

I hope this post is interesting to you and stay tuned for the other Zodiac characters in subsequent weeks!

[prototypezeroapp]

We're having a hard time choosing this one :P

POLL: Which one says "Aquarius" to you best?

[prototypezeroapp]

Character Design - Virgo: The Maiden

The first of the Zodiac in this Zodiac characters series is Virgo! Why Virgo? Because it's the character we are the furthest along with :P Here is what she looks like now.

Although the coloring and line work is still rough here, we think that she's finally achieving what we think brings out the "Virgo-vibe" the most. She did not always looked this way.

When we first jumped into the design these were the requirements:

Must be female (obviously.)

Should probably be humanoid...

Must communicate the "maiden" quality of the sign.

Wind Elemental. Virgo is traditionally an Earth sign, however, since we already have another very similar character that is female AND Earth, we feel we need to differentiate this character.

Based on these points, our illustrator @pichapio made a very quick pencil sketch to try to capture his interpretation of the requirements. This is the very first result:

Virgo First Rough Draft

Hmmm... definitely not right. The wings are very out of place... her hair do and dress makes her look arrogant, stuck up, and too trashy... far from the gentle, pure, and kind maiden that Virgo stands for.

After that feedback, we tried using a different dress, got rid of the wings and try out a new hairstyle... we were thinking along the lines of Disney princess, flowing dress, dancing with the wind:

Second and 3rd attempts

Hmmm... an obvious improvement... but that could just be because the drawings are more polished here. Since the version with her legs raised looked pretty promising, we went ahead and tried to roughly add color to see what she would look like when complete:

Rough color version of the 3rd attempt

She looks a bit pissed off... haha. After this rough color, something was really bothering me, but I can't quite pin down what is bothering me... There were definitely a couple issues that I could point out:

Her face looks angry... and sinister...

Her pose looks pretty awkward.

The dance moves and the way she holds the dress doesn't communicate "maiden" to me.

After coloring we definitely don't think this version is right... so we continued to brainstorm some more.

We decided to try variations of longer flowing 1 piece dress that hides her legs... There were also questions about her pose. Here are a few things we tried:

Multiple sketches of Virgo in multiple dress + poses

One thing's clear here... wings don't seem to make sense.

Then we wonder if her dress should be cloth or made up of leaves to signify the wind a bit more. Plus the fraying of the ends of the dress might look pretty neat. So we tried that compared to a normal cloth dress:

Cloth dress vs leaf dress

Whoa, maybe the leaves are a bit too leafy.... I'm starting to prefer the cloth dress better... but the cloth dress verion looks a bit too scary... might be the hair and long face + hollow eyes.

Maybe try roughly coloring it to see what they really look like?

Cloth dress vs leaf dress colored

Yep... way too leafy... she ends up looking like she's standing inside a bush... and too close to a wood-elf rather than wind... plus her chest looks way too large.

Compartively the cloth dress with slight frays here and there looks much better, but I still don't like the pose... it's too stiff... and the headress isn't working, but we're getting very close, I can feel it.

So we decided to go in the cloth direction, remove the headress and replace it with a single white flower (maybe) and have her bowing in prayers... we feel that is much more characteristically Virgo-like and we arrived at:

Current draft

Much much better! We feel that the current verion is very close to what we want her to be.

The pose feels a live, not stiff or awkward.

The dress is interesting and helps make her silhouette unique.

And most of all she feels like a Virgo. A sort of quiet power and elegant.

This design gives us the feeling that yes she's pure and kind, but you don't want to mess with her because she can also wreck you if you make her angry. Perfect. What do you think of this design?

That's it for our first Zodiac character design post! If you have any feedback on the character or this post do let us know.

Also more Zodiac character posts coming soon!

[prototypezeroapp]

Zodiacs

We're currently in the process of designing a whole new set of characters, exciting! Since the majority of the art work that's required for the game is done, I thought we could start creating more characters, one of the most fun part of making this game ;) I'm sure @pichapio (our illustrator) will agree.

First draft, obviously non-final, artwork of the 12 Zodiacs

(Good thing these aren't final drafts.)

Since the game is a blending of reality and the game world, we have a lot of cool ideas on how we can bring that out in our character designs. One of the ideas we always wanted to do is a set of characters that only have a high chance of appearing on your birthday (or birth month), which lead us naturally to the Zodiacs!

Our idea of the Zodiac specters is this:

They only appear within a date range. (Base probability of maybe 5% for everybody.)

The probability of encountering them increases even further if you have a birthday within that date range. (An additional 5% on top of the base probability.)

This means that everybody has a chance to encounter the Zodiacs but players will have a higher chance of encountering their own Zodiac vs others.

We think it would be pretty sweet for players to encounter and capture their very own zodiac monsters to trade with others.

Here's the date table for each Zodiac for your reference:

Aries : March 21 - April 19

Taurus : April 20 - May 20

Gemini : May 21 - June 20

Cancer : June 21 - July 22

Leo : July 23 - August 22

Virgo : August 23 - September 22

Libra : September 23 - October 22

Scorpio : October 23 - November 21

Sagittarius : November 22 - December 21

Capricorn : December 22 - January 19

Aquarius : January 20 - February 18

Pisces : February 19 - March 20

Design Direction

Obviously the visual designs of these characters are going to extremely important. There are a few very specific things we need to achieve with these characters. They need to:

Look amazing, powerful, godly, and very very rare.

They still must stay within the art style of the game.

When put together, the characters should feel like part of a set such that players would say "Oh yeah, this character is obviously part of the Zodiac set."

They must be of an element that fits the game

Stick to original element when we can. (There are only 3 elements in the canonical Zodiac: Earth, Air, Fire.)

Yet we need a good spread between our 7 elements: Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, Fire, Light, Dark. So some Zodiac's elements will need to change.

It's definitely not an easy task, luckily I get to leave that task up to @pichapio while I just point at things saying "This doesn't look right yet... not sure why.". I think that's a great arrangement ;) Everybody wins!

Since each character's design is quite unique we think it'll be good to dedicate 1 detailed design post for each character. Those posts will detail:

The design process

The different stages of the design process

The different versions we tried

What works

What doesn't

and in the end, I hope those post will be quite interesting for anybody reading.