Two Schizophrenics The Devblog

Friends and Foes

Hey! Sorry for not making a post yesterday, guys. Uh, something came up. But I’m here today! This post is about the characters in One Man Army, something I wish I had put some more time into. Nevertheless, there’s still plenty to talk about.

So back when I started this project (somewhere in January) all I had was a platform engine and a guy with a gun. The nameless lead character and its design kinda came forth as a counter on the archetypical shooter protagonist: bald marine with a gung-ho attitude and corny one-liners. I wanted my game to be about a poor, Soviet untrained soldier. The mute thing wasn’t mirrored to the usual marine babbling, it was for convenience. Besides, why would he be talking in the first place? His trigger finger does all the talking.

The reason I decided not to give him a name was a tie-in to his backstory (or, story of the game, if you will) where he is just one of many clones and thus it would be useless to name him. I got rid of the story though, mostly because the whole clone-buying mechanic was canned by the new level system. The other reason was that, upon reflection, the story was retarded and made no sense at all. So now the whole story is that which you see in the game: you get dropped behind enemy lines and you kill everyone you see. Pretty much. The only thing that remains from the old story is that whenever you die, your corpse stays there for the rest of the game. I thought about taking it out, but then I figured, why would I? Seeing where you have died before is good feedback, and in my opinion it’s funny as hell to walk over your own corpse.

Appearantly, science still has to discover hair dye

So then there’s enemies. The first World is a big science compound in a snowy environment, which automatically paves the way for Snow Guards. Initially I had designed every type of Snow Guard with different behaviour, but due to technical limitations (and time constraints!) the only way types differ from eachother is their speed, their toughness and what kind of weapon they carry. Though I have to say, playing with these three factors creates enough diversity to make it an interesting difference.

So I made my first Snow Guard a couple of months back, and they have been in the engine ever since. Having spent so much time in the engine with those guys kind of made their character for me. Simple things like putting one behind a desk and one on top of a high tower does an amazing lot. Today, I started working on some alternative sprites for these Snow Guards since, you know, wearing ski masks inside is just silly. For me, seeing a Snow Guard without a ski mask for the first time was a bit of a freaky experience. But here are some of the results!

And on a closing note, please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments! Even what you disregard as a suggestion without much thought can be the missing link. Oh, and if you have any suggestions on what I should be posting about, you’re always free to ask.

A kind word and a pat on the back,

~Brian

PS: If I’ve promised you’d be in the credits, contact me. I lost my list of creditables.