Kirlic Layout And Initial Character Designs
Good evening,
It’s gotten a bit late today, but before I call it a day, I want to give you all a quick update on my progress with the Kirlic update.
I started the week by making final adjustments to the Kirlic center map. Most of what was missing were decorations and small details around the streets, which I’ve now added.
Here’s a preview:
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As you can see in the image, there will be a central square with market stalls and a few side streets. The main building at the city square will be the inn, The Golden Goose. I’ve also finished the map for it (there are some elements like doors and lights that aren't visible on this as those are added as objects in the game):
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Once the maps were done, I started implementing them into the game, which mostly means making sure all the layers are properly aligned so that objects meant to appear above the player actually do. While doing that, I also revisited the city gate map I showed last week and added a small camp outside the city, where people gather who aren’t allowed to enter.
After that, I finally began working on the city’s first inhabitants. My initial focus was on creating models for background characters, meaning people who don’t play a major role in the story. Their main purpose is to make the streets feel more alive and to appear as guests inside the inn. For the women, I intentionally chose designs that don’t suggest there will be future content focused on them. I made three variations each for male and female townsfolk, which should hopefully provide enough visual variety in the city. Here’s an example:
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Once I was satisfied with those, I began creating the story-relevant characters. That includes, for example, a barmaid Rose for the inn and a baker’s daughter Tessa who will be selling bread at the market:
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I know there are many other important characters in Kirlic, and I’ve received several questions about them over the past week. I’m not yet sure which of them will be included in this initial update, since the main focus for now is on telling the MC’s story. Everyone else is considered bonus content and will be added in later updates. As I mentioned before, my goal isn’t to implement the entire city in a single update.
Now that most of the groundwork is done, I can finally start writing the story next week, including the travel mechanics for the journey to Kirlic and the planned ambush events along the way.
Once again, thank you all for your suggestions regarding the quest. I’m sorry I didn’t respond to everyone, it eventually became quite a lot, so I decided to focus on reading them all instead of giving everyone feedback. What I can say already is that I’ll stick to Bjorn’s existing quest as the main entry point for accessing the city. That means there won’t be three different alternative ways to enter Kirlic. I might change that later, but for now, I want to keep things straightforward. Bjorn’s quest will be separated from Kate’s story so that you can visit the Old Boar Inn without her or Claire.
I’ll see how far I get with the story writing next week, but other things on the to-do list include working on the scenes with Tia, Lyvia, and Bianca that I’m planning for the visit to the inn. I’ll share more details about that next Friday.
For now, I wish you all a happy Halloween and a nice weekend!
