[Progress check 01] Character art check + Meet Finn

Cultist Crush 2.0 is progressing really well.

I've mostly been coding so far, so there's not much to see, but I did want to take some time to showcase the new and improved Freddie Finn, who is almost finished.

Goodbye, Freddie!

I've gotten messages from some people worried about the change.

Quick background: Freddie was the first character I drew with the intention of making a game, over a year ago, long before I knew what the game would even be.

The intention was never to completely change him. My goals were: fix his anatomy mistakes + get him theme-appropriate outfits. It should still feel like the same character, just better drawn.

The new art style + what I'm hoping to do

Ren'Py is a visual engine. It can do a lot more than Twine + you'll be seeing characters on screen a lot more. So I went for a higher-effort style than the previous version.

You can see in his example how thinner outlines + some soft shading change the style quite a bit. It's still cartoony and simple, but a bit more organic.

I'm also splitting characters and outfits into chunks: head, left arm, right arm, body.

There are two things that I'd like to explore with that: either multiple poses or soft looping animations. I'll only do one, if any, because it's a ton of work. Either way, it definitely won't be in 0.1.

Just for fun, I've been trying Live2D. Looks like he's swaying in the wind, but we have to start somewhere:

I'm just going for soft breathing animation + some frame-based blinks (open-close). I'm not going to animate the eyes/brows/mouth/hair, because I find those animations ✨very creepy✨.

More about Finn

In this new version of the game, Finn is a rogue warrior of Weyrwood Village. Son of the local innkeeper, Finn dreams of becoming a royal guard: for the adventures, for the danger but, mostly for the prestige.

Personality-wise, Finn is sweet but superficial. Strong but reckless. Adventurous but lazy. A little dumb, with a good heart.

As one of the starter characters, you'll meet Finn quickly and he'll join your Lair almost instantly. A perpetually horny himbo, he makes himself at home in interesting ways 👀.

I've added some of the outfits you'll find him in as part of his storyline: he starts the game wearing an innocuous village outfit and upgrades it when the situation forces him to.

Special costumes

In this new version of the game, characters will have fewer everyday outfits. They'll have a few base outfits you can find them in (default, underwear, etc.) + some unlockable outfit changes (like Finn changing to a new outfit after his old one is destroyed).

Instead, you'll have a place to summon outfits for the characters. These will range from theme-appropriate (a sexier warrior outfit for Finn) to... very much not. They'll be released sporadically.

Plus, Patreon supporters will get one exclusive outfit for each character. At the moment, I'm aiming for these exclusive outfits to be:

• Sexy but story-appropriate: something sexier than the default outfit, but that still makes sense for the character's every day scenes.

• Thematic shifts: something slightly out of character. I don't want to have to draw a bad "default warrior" outfit to make the "Patreon warrior" look better. So it's going to be a slight shift in theme, that still makes some sense.

Under the jump, the Patreon outfit I've drawn for Finn.

It's a riff on his base warrior design: what if Finn was a warrior somewhere further North and sluttier?

If you all hate it, I can turn it into a summonable outfit and make something new for the Patreon. There's still a lot of time ahead of us before release.