Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #23

Hiya there!

It's been quite a few days since the last update--and for that, I really do apologise. I've been neck deep in the scripting and writing side of things as I work to get a playable build out for the alpha--of which I greatly underestimated the work left before it was at a state I'm happy with. But I'm beginning to wrap up this heavily story focused scene and then after some voice clip editing and implementing I think I should have something ready. I thank you all for your patience!

Today I wanted to present something that I know might be slightly polarising depending on how attached you may have been to the original design/art for her after having it around for so long, but I'm currently putting some resources into remaking Ren's (and soon Cynthia's) sprites.

The reason I'm remaking these two particular sprites is two-fold:

- The artist that originally made both Ren and Cynthia's sprites is no longer on the project as they wished to pursue other endeavors. This left me with a severely limited set of sprites with minimal expressions and lacking in pose variety with no way of adding more, in that particular style.

I did originally attempt to rectify this by having another artist create new faces for the existing sprites, but this resulted in creating a bizarre frankenstein-like mish-mash of elements that didn't quite fit together on one piece, and I felt things were getting worse the more I tried to layer on top of them in a cheap way of trying to side-step the problem.

- Truthfully, there were certain aspects I wasn't fully happy with when taking Ren's and Cynthia's sprites into consideration. Mostly down to the facial elements where things were a touch off, like eyebrows changing style/width between expressions, the eyes seeming a little off, etc. which was the result of the original artist trying their best to mimic the style of the original five sprites from Chapter One. And I do think they did a good job, and am grateful for the concept designs they gave me.

So, taking these two things into consideration, I made the risky choice of having the sprites remade. The result of Ren's sprite you can see in the attached image of this post, which I think captures her cheeky, energetic spirit perfectly and gives me a wealth of expressions to work with now over the limited palette I had before.

Of course, I wanted to be forthright with this change, so it wasn't too big of a surprise down the line. As I understand the style is a bit different, but I felt that this was the best route to take for the sake of not feeling limited with her sprite movements/expressions further into the story as already with 2 (soon to be 3!) alpha builds I felt I was stretching the few expressions I had for her original sprite.

Ultimately I know that the mix of styles steadily building up for Quest Failed is due to collapse in on itself and I think a choice is going to have to be made down the road--whether I try to unify everything under one style, or keep pushing with the mix for faster development progress.

I hope you all like the new sprite for her, and like always, I'm always listening to comments/critique and will always strive to take things into consideration where realistically possible.

Thank you~