Refining Ransome
Dec 09, 2015
It's an interesting process working on an adventure game like this from inception to finished form, for us it's definitely a very character driven process. One of the first things we do, is establish our main player character(s), aside from each's obvious visual traits and associated costuming etc., it's really based on the major aspects of their personalities formed by a character's motivations short and long term.
At its core, Thimbleweed Park is about each of the five playable characters specific story arcs: Who are they as a person at the beginning of the game? Where are they going? Typically, not just down a path from one side of town to the other, it's about each one's personal journey of discovery and how they might tend to grow from the adventure's start to finish.
At the start of the process you can easily get attached to who you think a character is (and in my case, how they look). As an artist/character designer I have a tendency to almost immediately imagine a character's appearance from the get go. Once I have an image of that character in my head, it's usually not long to go from paper sketches to an initial pixel art representation.
In the event of putting something like the kickstarter pitch together, we had to pretty quickly make up our minds about the character representations and just run with it. This was a double edged sword as it served to put an important stake in the ground, but didn't really allow us the opportunity to fully refine any of the designs.
Ransome described as a ‘Creepy Clown' out of the gate had a fairly well formed personality (we had quickly thought up the rude clown persona and that gave us a lot to work with). He had immediately came to life in my head as a standard white faced red nosed bozo-type. Although this was a good stepping off point, we realized it was definitely too stereotypical to be his final look.
As a result, the first thing we tried was giving him a somewhat more unique hairdo. Given the 80's vibe I then went ahead and tried a Mohawk version of his hairdo, after all, what could be cooler than "Ransome the Mohawk Insult Clown'? Although we sorta liked this, we got over it and moved on to try a variety of other approaches. Ultimately Octavi came back with a brilliant range of Ransome variations.
One of the things we really liked about Octavi's designs, is that he really didn't have any of the pre-conceived notions about the character I had stuck in my head from living with his formative personality over the previous year. Keep in mind we'd had a pretty clear vision of his personality forming in our psyche and it can be hard to get past that when you think you know a character - especially one you've had a role in creating.
One of Ron's best pieces of advice is always be ready to change and refine when it truly makes sense. I had also been keying off of our earlier character development for Maniac Mansion and we really wanted to push some degree beyond that in the evolution of this character. Once we had an opportunity to see Octavi's fresh takes, while somewhat out of the box they absolutely complimented our artistic vision and really did click. After a little back and forth we unanimously gravitated towards this version...
Here is Octavi, describing his process of designing Ransome:
Ransome's creation process was really interesting, because Ron and Gary deliberately gave me very little information on how they imagined the character's look and personality, as they wanted me to have full creative freedom. Of course, I had in mind the first version that Gary made for the Kickstarter campaign, but my job here was to create five completely new takes on the character to see if any of them would be suitable.
All I knew was that Ransome had to be a mean, bitter clown, victim of a curse that prevented him from removing his makeup. With this information I started working on my five renditions. I tried to make them as distinct as possible, with different ages, body sizes, clothes and facial expressions. But in my head all of them had to look kind of gross and scruffy. In my opinion the version that came closest to my overall idea was the last one: his skinny look, messy hair and missing teeth worked very well with the initial description of the character, so I'm glad that it was chosen as the final Ransome.
However, we soon realized that using this version would be a challenge when working on the animation, due to the asymmetry of his body. We didn't want to lose the balloon as it gives a kind, childish touch, to a character that represents exactly the opposite, increasing its sinister look.
But the extra work of animation is well worth it. Of all the characters I've had the pleasure to work on for the game, Ransome is clearly my favorite, as it's probably the most personal.
- Octavi
So behold Ransome in all his clownfro glory!
Additionally, all these other designs are still very useful, as there could still be other clowns around...? Or who knows maybe instrumental for a sequel.... ‘Ransome's Revenge' or maybe ‘Attack of the Killer Clown Clones?.... After all anything's possible...
- Gary
I love the little things in this, like one sock has fallen down and he clearly can't be bothered anymore to sort it out.
Also Is Ransome available for kid's parties? =)
That's NOT a good idea; Ransome would instantly turn those kids into coulrophobes.
In Ocavis second paragraph in the second sentence there might be something people could consider a mild spoilder?! If it were my, I would remove it.
Keep up the great work!
"At the long abandoned circus grounds, Ransome the Clown had been cursed and can never remove his make-up. How did he get into this situation? How can he get out? Does he really want to? What’s up with that dead body slowly bloating in the water? Who knows!"
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed-park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv/description
Cool design btw! I really like this creepy, depressed clown style... Wow, that sounds weird.
Great choice for the final design! I really look forward to playing Ransome!
Nah, I don't think that's the case, but I would love that ;)
Wow, this game will become the new masterpiece of the 21st century, I feel it!
If you liked to, you could even implement a differential equation which describes the movement of the balloon in relation to the movement of Ransome's hand, but it wouldn't be worth the effort.
hope he makes it into the game somewhere.
Thanks Octavi, really like the design!
Can't wait to see him in action
What I know is that the most satisfactory relationships I had with characters were the not immediate and obvious ones.
For instance: I never liked the Ferengis in Star Trek TNG, and that's what they were made for. But the way they were developed in Deep Space Nine was remarkable, and the character of Quark was most rewarding: a thief, and ugly as all Ferengis, but to be found as strongly ethical in his own very particular way, and devoted to what he valued most in life.
Seriously, I love this kind of cheating.
It's used pretty often in comics and animation, and it looks right home to me.
10 games for $17, You might recognize these Lucas-arts Classics:
(Indiana Jones, Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Zak McKracken, The Dig, Afterlife, Outlaws, LOOM)
I really love this genre of games and thought it was relevant news.
The first Ransome with Bozo like hair looks more simple, 1987 game style. And would be great on a Maniac Mansion style. But c'mon now you got the compute power to make thinks looks better but still pixelated! All the screenshots are more like Monkey Island now, so, Great Ransome it looks creepy and weird.
Is he going to keep things in his hair defying physics like the giant key for a giant monkey head?
About the other four ones. 1 and 4 looks like "just" normal clowns. 2 is grandpa clown and 3 looks like a thief clown, or like a nerdy one who didn't want to dress like a clown.
But every five of them will work as clowns if you flip the mouth and make it a nice smile. Except if the smile is a creepy one like The Joker smile.
And by the way, Ransome looks like the name of a comic book criminal, one who kidnaps people. It would be fun if the dumber investigator have obsessed speech lines like: "His name is RANSOM, it must be a criminal!" Even when nothing points toward this.
Great work guys! Congratulations on all the process of keeping things updated about the project without leaking spoilers.
[Italian insult fight mode ON]
Ho sentito dire che sei uno spregevole codardo.
Dec 18 at 04:05
But all the previous messages are dated Dec 12 ~ Dec 09.
Does anyone have built a Time Machine?!