Character Concept: Naomi

Long time no concept! Well, there have been concepts, but I've had to be sneaky about it because of needing to get the all-clear from my studio to share. But now I have the all-clear, so here we are! Get ready for a monologue lol.

A Little Context to the Game

Right now, the game is a rougelike deckbuilder where a secret society of demon hunters goes into the Underworld to close Breaches between the Underworld and our own. Think Constantine, Hellboy, Chainsaw Man, and my personal favorite obscure anime Blood Blockade Battlefront. In classic Men in Black fashion, there are always duos diving into the Underworld - a Fighter and a Magician. When I pitched the game to the studio, my goal was to make it fun and weird and cool - harkening to those early-2000s secret society movies and buddy cop movies.

A Little Context to Naomi

This is Naomi, the first Fighter for the game and very much the "get comfortable with the mechanics" kind of character. She was actually the first character I thought of and really the genesis of the whole game.

I had this idea of two best friends, a guy and a girl, where the guy confesses his feelings and then the girl confesses that she is actually part of a secret demon hunting legacy. I've always been partial to characters like Spiderman, and I loved the 2000s cartoon shows like Kim Possible, Static Shock, and Danny Phantom (and if you want to go really obscure, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee) - characters who have to balance living a normal life with a very paranormal reality. I also love the idea of a well-intentioned best friend getting sucked into this bizarre world that the main character just kind of shrugs as part of the mundane for her.

Next Steps: Making a Cast from a Character

Very quickly, I wanted to ditch the idea of a romantic throughline between the two characters, and I wanted an ensemble cast - a group of people who each were weird in their own right (think heist movies and movies like Atlantis). I began drafting ideas for a "uniform" for the characters in this secret society. An obvious source of inspiration is Chainsaw Man here, but I wanted to take it a step further and pull from high fashion as well as different subcultures. The uniform would be merely repeating elements amongst the characters that still had each character holding their own "style".

The elements I knew I wanted were: a tie, a white shirt/black jacket combo, and black pants.

The sharp black/white contrast would help the characters stand out in any background on a practical standpoint, and also the black/white palette meant that I could throw a bunch of colors around them and not have them lost in the barrage. It also meant there was a core aesthetic that remains colorblind-friendly. Also, let's be real - it's just classic and cool.

For Naomi in particular, I pulled heavily from skater aesthetics and sukebon/bancho (those Japanese girl/boy gangs) fashion from the 80's. I also knew I wanted her to have this jacket that was perpetually on her shoulders, the magnetism from her cool vibes always keeping it on. For hair and "face", I wanted to pull from Utena and Kim Possible - two of the coolest characters I can think of. Hyper-competent but laid back was the goal for Naomi.

Ultimately I went with 4 for her style after polling a couple of friends.

The Coolest Girl You Know

I wanted Naomi to exude effortless cool. She's a cinephile, a best friend, and the person you want by your side in a pinch. Naturally, she got the coolest weapon as a default - a katana. Part of why I wanted her to be a sword-wielding character was to harken to Utena. At my programmer's request, I also made the sword waaaaay bigger than it probably should be to up the "cool factor" further. To add that extra little detail, I also based the wave design on the sword off The Great Wave off Kanagawa, which outside of being a beautiful piece of art is the prefecture my programmer is from. While it's not pictured here, Naomi's katana also has a little whaleshark bobble at the end - a gift from Zack when the two went to the local aquarium.

While it's not really shown here, the other big thing about Naomi is that she is only part-time as a demon hunter. Her other part-time job is as a sales rep (which she hates) at the large cellphone company Atlamobile. That day job is where she met her best friend and future demon-hunting partner, Zack (who I will talk about in a future post). I've had my own crappy day jobs, and my friends have certainly had the same. The idea of this borderline superhero having to deal with the grind of a soulless job is hilarious to me, and also feels pretty grounded in this day and age.

Final Steps: The Colors

As with all concepts, the final step is testing some colors. Naomi's motif is water - she's go-with-the-flow and from North Florida (my own childhood neck of the woods). I tried several palettes, but obviously went with the red-haired palette (probably still stuck on my Kim Possible/Utena train). In my head canon (...which I guess just is canon), she dyes her hair that color (the original color being more of a dark brown/black). I also wanted her to have cool colors on her sneakers and for the lining of her jacket, giving her that splash of color to make the overall design more interesting.

And that's it! That's Naomi. I love her so much, and I hope it shows. The whole cast is like this - me pulling elements from ideas, people, stories I love and trying to celebrate them as best I can. While there isn't a "message" in the game, I want it to reflect what I've seen throughout my life - the weirdness, coolness, and absurdity that is being a person in this day-and-age.

Anyway, sorry this is a whole novel of a breakdown. If you've made it to this point - wow, I, uh. That's really cool of you, and it means a lot to me. I'm really excited about this game, as you can probably tell. I hope that it resonates with people. I'll share more concept work as I go, but hopefully it won't be, like, this long. A lot of games get put on the chopping block, but I am hopeful here, so hopefully these weirdos can make it to the finish line. Someone's got to close the Breaches to the Underworld after all.

<3

TwoPenny