I was thinking about the player character for my space game.

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I was thinking about the player character for my space game. Nothing's settled yet, but I was considering some kinda Riddick-looking fucker. The idea is that your RBF does not match your characterization at all, since the game's mostly about exploring moons and researching in a library.

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The main problem I have with this is that this is kinda niche appeal. The sort of people that want to be a Riddick-looking motherfucker are not the sort of people that will play my nerd game about making out with hot space communists.

The other issue is simpler: sex. This is the sex-haver.

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In Floating Flowers I committed to having players able to at least choose male vs female body types for their character. Since I'm hand-drawing all the scenes, it was an enormous amount of effort even with a character specifically created to be androgynous.

This guy is Not Androgynous.

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I am tempted to just let the player choose an absurdly butch female character that looks basically the same, but that doesn't really work around the challenge of having to draw all the sex twice.

Or the fact that most people probably don't wanna be this guy in a porn game.

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Another option is to go alien. How about an alien guy that looks evil, kinda like a bulked-up version of Garrus or the far more famous Jagi, from world-famed space opera Space Pulp.

I don't really know which would be best, but if I'm gonna do a guy MC, it's gotta be a big dork with an evil face.

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For me, the big issue with aliens is the top of their head. There are basically three options: normal skull/hair, dinosaur ridges, or Alien Bits Shaped Like Hair.

Problem is, hair with actual shape doesn't really look intimidating, and dinosaur ridges look fing stupid.

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I'm far from the first person to have these thoughts. Remember Babylon 5? Here's the love interest as originally designed, and then redesigned when they realized dinosaur heads aren't terribly sexy.

That said, a ridge on the BACK of the head, hmmmmmm.

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Here's a bunch of "big forehead" designs where the decorations are in the back. I think this might be a good direction.

Any opinions on any of this, including "no, don't" are invited.

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3 & 4 seemed the most popular, so I broke them out into more detailed takes. Do we like a dork that looks like an evil knight or an evil minotaur?

#GameDev #IndieDev

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@view I'd got for the one on the left.