Figment Dev Blog #2 – Meeting the characters

We meet once again people of the internet! It is time for another dev blog article, straight from the production of our new surreal adventure game: Figment. This time we are taking a look at one of the central pillars in any good story, namely the characters it centers on and whose actions drive it forward. That of course means checking out the main characters, but also taking a look at the characters in the world in general (to give a good understanding of where the main characters comes from).

The plan is to tell you about both the characters’ story and personality, but also how they have been developed from starting idea to final character.

Voices in our head

Before we start talking about the main characters, we have to talk about the characters that inhabit Figment in general, essentially the games NPCs. As we described in the last dev blog, the game takes place inside the mind of a person, and the elements of the world are defined by this person’s experiences, thoughts and ideas. But what about the inhabitants of the world? Are they also made by these traits?

The short answers is no, or, at least, not any more than most people are defined by their surroundings. Instead, we asked ourselves, what is also in the mind beside thoughts, memories and dreams? We quickly remembered that people often say that we have small voices in our head, telling us how to act and what to do. Our impulses and impulse controls. The voices telling us to get up in the morning, telling us not to eat that extra piece of cake, the voice telling us to let loose and so on. In Figment we have made these voices as strange people who live in our heads, constantly trying to tell the mind to follow or not follow a certain impulse, and they are defined by these impulses themselves.

Therefore, a boring character might be the mind's voice of moderation, while another more free spirited character might be the impulse to travel and explore.

Concept art for different characters in the world of Figment

Dusty

The main character in Figment is a husky, scarf-clad fellow named Dusty that must travel through Figment to stop the Nightmares. He is armed only with his trusty wooden sword and courage, but also a good dose of bitterness and anger over the whole situation that he feels forced into.

In the start of development, Dusty, who didn’t have a name yet, was more of a simple guardian that kept the nightmares locked away and had to capture them if they escaped. But, as we got closer to the idea of the characters being the voices inside the mind, we felt we had something interesting with that approach and decided to make him one of the voices of the mind as well. Feedbacks also told us that he needed to be more heroic and a bit less strange than the first ideas, just so he would be a bit more likeable. This process was what ended in the new and improved Dusty.

The different stages that Dusty has gone through, from a simple, yet strange, character with a snake whip, to the more heroic character that is in the game now.

The main feature of Dusty’s personality is his total lack of fear. He is essentially the mind’s courage. That voice that keeps telling you too keep going, not give up and face a challenge head on, be that when there is actual danger involved, or the perceived dangers of daily life that we might fear.

Dusty is many ways is what you would expect from a hero, courageous and steadfast. However, unlike most heroes he does not grow into this role: he already is as an experienced hero at the start of the game. Our idea for this came from the fact that Figment takes place inside the mind of an adult person, so the voices in here should also be adults. In the case of Dusty, he has been around for some times, giving courage to the mind, but as the mind gets older, sometimes courage is not needed as much as when it is younger, and Dusty sort of lost his job, which may have made him a bit grumpy.

Piper

The fast-talking and fast-flying bird creature, named Piper, is best described as the secondary main character. She is there to help guide the player and add a bit of uplifting humor. Piper is one of Dusty’s old friends that tries to motivate him into taking action against the nightmares and follows him on the journey through the game, helping with hints, pointing out interesting elements and poking fun at Dusty. The banter between the characters will help the player to learn more about the world of Figment and the character whose mind we are inside.

However, Piper did not start out as her own character with a guiding role. She started out as an entirely different idea, being the snake-like talking whip weapon the main character used, cracking some jokes, and actually being “part” of the main character. As development went on we updated Dusty, and felt that is wasn’t a heroic thing to run around beating up enemies with your friend. Therefore, we instead made her into her own character that could move around on her own, but also have her own opinions when bantering with Dusty, thereby being able to provide more depth to the world.

Piper is a much more positive character than Dusty, very energetic and often telling people to lighten up. You could even say that she is the voice of positivity in the mind, often seeing the best in any situation and trying to make others do that as well. She and Dusty are the odd partners that together represent positivity and the courage to overcome any kind of nightmare and fear.

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