Flatwoods - A Post-mortem Pt03
DEVELOPMENT Pt03 - Fill the Garden You cant just have a game with a main character that’s a Lemon, that would be silly, you need to surround him with other delicious fruits and vegetables as well. Well, surrounding Lemon might be a bit of a stretch, outside of Lemon, Flatwoods only ended up with an additional 3 characters. First up we have Lime. Lemons little brother, Lime.
Because of course his name is Lime, he is a little Lemon so what else would he be called. Truth be told, Lime didn’t really have a lot to his character. I wanted people to know he was still very young, and I tried to convey that through the flavor text around him. He wets the bed, his shelves are full of children’s books and he has a photo album of his baby photos beside his bed. I find kids are pretty hard to write, they tend to be energetic and say cute things in real life, but how to really make them seem distinct, especially in a tiny role like this? I don’t know, I tried to give him at least one distinctive trait, he enjoys watching his brother get into trouble, but then again I guess most siblings do? Don’t they? Next we have Lemons mother, Clementine.
Clementine is the most under developed character in the game, I suck at writing female characters, this was my first time trying to in years, and to make it worse she kind of had to be a literal 50′s mother to make sense in the context of the game. This is an issue I am aware of and am really hoping to rectify in my next game Shooty and the Catfish, with Catfish hopefully being a more well rounded female character. There are illusions to Clementine being a single mother, there’s a photo of Lemons father hanging on the wall and he comments on how he hasn’t seen him in a long long time, so maybe he is off working or perhaps its something more serious, but either way, Clementine is just trying to do whats best for her kids. Lastly we have Mr Fisher...
Despite having the name Mr Fisher, this guy is actually a Carrot, a carrot that enjoys growing turnips. I dare say he is the most well realized character in Flatwoods, but that could just be because he has the most ground to cover, literally. His home is littered with bad smells and dirt thanks to his working on the farm, the property itself is largely run down outside of the core entrance area. Hes an all around rough and lonely man that doesn’t too much care for company. He was also the funnest to draw the portraits for. All around I think the characters for Flatwoods were rather weak, and as I mentioned earlier, its going to be a big focus on my next game. NPCs will operate a little differently to Flatwoods, and I hope I can make them not just more well realized in terms of writing, but more fun to interact with as well as a player.