Mossgrave / Dev log

Dev log 7

Finding a face

No part of Mossgrave has taken more tries than the person you play. You look at them for every minute of every run, so they had to be right.

We started with flat-coloured humans: tapered limbs, faceted heads, wedge hands, one colour per part. A woodsman, a miner, a fisher, a cook, an adventurer and a wizard, all standing politely on little rocks.

The first humans. Clean and readable, but a bit like painted chess pieces.
The first humans. Clean and readable, but a bit like painted chess pieces.

We tried races too. A stone folk, a plant folk, frog folk, boar folk, owl folk and mushroom folk. We liked them a great deal. Then we cut them, because Mossgrave is a story about a lost person finding their way back, and it works best when everyone in the world is human. The mushroom folk took it well.

Six races that did not make it. We think about the frog sometimes.
Six races that did not make it. We think about the frog sometimes.

Next we built the same villagers three different ways: plain boxes, a classic faceted build, and a "pointed" build where every limb starts as a box and gets puffed and tapered into shape. Pointed won. It reads clearly from far away and still looks like a person up close, and it became the cast of our first trailer.

The pointed build, up close.
The pointed build, up close.
The trailer cast, each hard at work.
The trailer cast, each hard at work.

When the game moved into Unity, the hero met Gravekeeper Mossbeard properly for the first time, and the two of them did not look like they came from the same world. So we walked the hero toward Mossbeard one step at a time: his height, his proportions, and the soft painted light he wears. Step D was the one. Same outfit, same person, but now clearly from the same village.

Mossbeard on the left, then the hero in five steps toward his style.
Mossbeard on the left, then the hero in five steps toward his style.
Step D, standing beside him in the graveyard. Mossbeard is unimpressed, which is how you know it worked.
Step D, standing beside him in the graveyard. Mossbeard is unimpressed, which is how you know it worked.

Then came the face. We made a lot of faces: painted eyes and dark eyes, long noses and square jaws, faces with soft tones and faces with none. Every one of them taught us something, and most of them taught us what not to do.

One evening's worth of faces.
One evening's worth of faces.

In the end we threw the generator away and built the head by hand, one point at a time: a defined chin, a nose that belongs to the face, ears worked into the shape, and a small square neck that is part of the head instead of something it sits on. The whole head is 120 triangles. The light is banded in soft steps so it feels hand-painted, and the eyes, brows and mouth are painted on. One rule held throughout: nobody looks sad. You have lost your memory, not your nerve.

The hand-built head, bare and with short hair and a goatee.The hand-built head, bare and with short hair and a goatee.
The hand-built head, bare and with short hair and a goatee.

That head now runs the character creator, with a matching female face built from the same mesh, long hair, a ponytail and six hair colours.

Two new arrivals, ready to wake up in a cottage that is not theirs.Two new arrivals, ready to wake up in a cottage that is not theirs.
Two new arrivals, ready to wake up in a cottage that is not theirs.