Today’s update is brought to you entirely by Rafał Wojda-Wołkowycki, one of our game writers of “The Dark Quarter” - Michał Hartliński
Greetings fellow detectives!
We’re back. Since the last update, all the illustrations have been completed. By completed, I mean that all internal and external artists had delivered raw products of their hard work. What happens right now is a process of standardization and revision of the graphic design, before everything will be merged and prepared for print.
Standardization
We worked with a host of talented artists, understandably, we always wanted our art to look consistent, but on the other hand it’s only natural that artists have their distinct styles and realistically speaking, there are differences, and we embrace that fact. What matters the most is keeping the general thematic feel, artistic vision and objective quality of the art. With that said, we do have in place an extra process we call ‘standardization’, which is happening right now. The goal of this process is ensuring stylistic consistency. It’s clearly not about redrawing existing art, but rather about very cosmetic changes, or more technical adjustments of color palette, levels of saturation etc. to make art more consistent.
You can see above, how XYZ was adjusted to fit the established style. Therefore, it was always important to note that the art we presented you so far, was all still WIP, for it was always meant to receive this additional treatment.
I also mentioned graphic design. Sure, for Kickstarter review copies and campaign itself we prepared most of the graphics. But it was, well, a prototype. I can tell that there will be no revolutions here and the art style will remain the same. The game will be fully recognizable to what we showed, but we simply need to update it. Some changes are purely visual, caused by the feedback about readability. Some designs were more of the KC campaign mockups, and they need to be up-scaled to the actual print quality. Some changes are called for by the mechanical changes - like moving around the skill upgrade price ranges on the character player boards.
Once both of these processes are completed, we will marry the two, to create actual files for the print (well, that’s actually a love triangle, for what also starts soon is component proofreading. Many components need the text that will be printed on them. The texts, like consumable card abilities are ready, but need to be proofread, before we place them on the cards).
MINIS!
Another big milestone for us are miniatures. All of the minis are sculpted!
Most of our minis were ready by the time of KS campaign. We know you people, and we wanted to show you as many as we could. But, there was a twist. By that time we didn’t know all the characters that we wanted to include in our stories. What’s also crucial to acknowledge, is that characters who are nobilitated with a mini of their own are usually important ones. So there was a conflict of “ok we want to show off with as many minis” VS “We have limited miniature ‘slots’ to fill, and I don’t want to fill these with generic characters. I need to know these important guys well before we give them their proper plastic flesh.”
So, for that reason, the sculpting of minis was literally frozen for many, many months, and it only started again this year. Let me present you with a collage of all the miniatures, as well as individual close ups of all the new characters. These come in no particular order from Lost to the Night expansion and Miniature Expansion.
Annie Christmas
Cat
Helene Martin
Henchman
Hooded Antagonist
Laveau Grunt
Reggie
Todd
From my own perspective, as a game director and writer at the same time, it was always a challenge to reconcile the responsibilities of the two. Thankfully, with things getting finalized I do have slightly more space for writing itself. Therefore, we speak a lot about production, which is a priority right now, but let me just mention briefly that - fear not, the scenarios themselves are written, implemented and tested, and this activity will become our number one, together with actual proofreading and localization of what we already have. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves for now.
Place for a pun about Dead Saturdays
Lastly for this month, I wanted to end with another faction-lore-focused character presentation. Today let’s go with Dead Saturdays, the infamous and powerful gang of New Orleans. These guys are sort of a mixture between a criminal gang of vandalizing punks and occultists. They idolize and emulate the style of a Voodoo loa of death - Baron Samedi. It’s hard to call most of them true practitioners of Voodoo. Where higher ups within their gang are surely devoted and do have a real connection with their patron loa, most grunts simply joined the powerful and respected gang for the same reasons brutal youth joins gangs all around the world. Whoever joins as a blinker, very quickly ceases to be one, but once again, most Dead Saturdays do not have anything supernatural about them other than some limited knowledge built around their hermetic rituals. Then again, selected few can be capable users of the arcane.
Papa Doc
Let’s start with a ruthless leader of the gang. Papa Doc is the one who pushed the gang into actions that bring them into our story. The man has made some powerful, supernatural acquaintances beyond his league and he decided to ride this tiger. This surely makes him an ambitious man, who is ready to take risks to advance his power.
Vespasian
Vespasian, is a strange Dead Saturday. At the first glance he appears like a wimp who should have no place within the gang and this gave him an unflattering nickname ‘the bitch’, of which he is not particularly fond of. What he lacks in the muscle department he makes up in the fanatic loyalty to the Papa Doc and devotion to the Baron. He’s the one willing to take any risk and partake in any ritual, no matter how sinister and dangerous.
Grunts
As already mentioned, most of the members of the gang are just brutes who found the gang cool and appealing. They spend their nights hanging out, partying, stealing, vandalizing, terrorizing the neighborhood, and taking part in Papa Doc’s rituals and schemes. In the end those are brutal and nasty people who revel in the power that the group and ruthlessness of their lifestyle gives them. They will have no second thoughts about stabbing someone with a knife or hitting one with a gas pipe.
A girl who can match or even exceed the other members of the gang with her attitude and thirst for violence can go far within their ranks. It’s a very respect-based tribe of its sorts, and to be a Dead Saturday, you have to be one at heart. After all no-one is born a Dead Saturday - you become one.
Dark Rituals
I spend much time emphasizing Dead Saturday’s down to earth nature, but they are not simply painted up criminals. In the end, willingly or not they are the servants of the darker powers, and these powers can manifest in spectacular ways, empowering the chosen ones with their sinister gifts.
Appealing Style
Dead Saturdays style and careless lifestyles are magnetic for the youth. Who doesn’t love the skull face paint and Halloween mischief all year long. Many teens idolize the gang, especially if they do not entirely comprehend their real, criminal nature and brutality of their actions. It’s simply radical and cool to be a Dead Saturday. Hence, you can also find many gang wannabes, who fantasize about joining the gang, or even become sort of their apprentices, by becoming sidekicks and infromers for the gang.
That’s it for today. We hope you will have a great Saturday (no pun intended)!
