“Da-da-da-da-da! It’s the one and only S-H-double-O! (Shoo! Shoo!)”
Hope you ready for the next episode!
In our previous blog post HOOMANZ Devlog #1 - “The Big Bang” we talked about how it all started with the development of our upcoming cute’n’casual game called HOOMANZ. We recommend grabbing some popcorn and going through that post first. But if you’re one of the OGs and read that one already, come dive deep with us into the evolution of our cute little main character; Shoo! (You can still keep the popcorn)
Let’s start at the beginning, The Big Bang – The idea of Shoo. How did this immensely huggable creature come to life?!
Shoo actually had quite an evolution and only very recently we all agreed that this version really hit the sweet spot. In the beginning there were only a few requirements for the character:
We knew there has to be this play between light and dark
The intention is that the character shouldn’t be seen or spotted by the enemy
Has to be somewhat scary
The super cute huggable part actually wasn’t intended in the beginning and kinda sizzled out from all the iterations. It was only down the line, when we realized that its cuteness will actually be a big part of the character; it also doubled down on the duality we were going for.
We teased some of the early concepts of Shoo in episode #1, you can expect many more in this episode. These 2 versions below were the early stage concepts. The first one is based on the mythological creature/god Cernunnos. We used this character in some of our past projects, so we knew it’s only a placeholder. The truly first version of Shoo was this Chad-looking, built, semi-scary blend between Cernunnos, a squirrel looking bear Pokémon, and probably a sprinkle of some genes from Chris Hemsworth. Whoah… yeah, we know what you’re thinking: “a bit too much”, huh? Well, that’s exactly how we felt, so we waddled awaaay *waddle waddle* back to the drawing board.
The second version of Shoo is where it started to take the turn towards cuteness – so less Hemsworth, more Dustin Henderson in season 1 of Stranger Things. Gotta note, it was a bit rushed, since we caught ourselves having to quickly create a presentable image of Shoo for an important presentation. Nevertheless, we rolled with this version for a little while – even did some storyboarding of a little cutscene.
*A few weeks passed*
Suddenly, “We need it to be more cute and magical!” – Our creative director apparently got infected with the whole cuteness situation and secretly longs for a Shoo pillow to let his cute aggression out every once in a while… we don’t blame him. The Hoomanz actually relate to that strongly, but that’s a topic for another episode. Although, an AA meeting for cute aggression addicts might be something we should look into for them – just sayin’.
Anyways, we started iterating on a more magical Shoo and these 3 little guys came out of it:
More cute? Check!
Magical? Check!
Original? Eeeh, not so much. We felt like these concepts struck a bit too much of a generic feel for our taste. And sooo, we waddled awaaay *waddle waddle* back to the drawing board.
Now here me out, the most random thing happened… a pumpkin.
At first glance it indeed does seem like someone just said: “Kup it!”, opened up a random word generator, clicked on the button, “PUMPKIN” appeared, and they just rolled with it. But it actually makes sense in more than one way – Nature is an important and constant thing in the story, pumpkins are used also in the dark as Jack-o'-lanterns during Halloween, and if you draw puppy eyes on them, they look super cute with their fat round bodies.
Behold, pumpkin Shoo:
Talking about Jack-o'-lanterns, here’s the dark version of Shoo – kinda scary, probably too scary in terms of what we were going for.
We even got to a point where we were imagining how the respawn animation could look.
But reality just hits you in the face and slams you on the ground sometimes. We just couldn’t get it to work in 3D – the angle of where Shoo was looking was all wrong and inconsistent.
Generally, when an artist is illustrating in 2D, the proportions are not always the same in 3D – sometimes you need to go around it and cheat a bit. For example, the challenge for Shoo was adapting to the in-game camera point of view, forcing us to exaggerate a lot the head facing upward, way more than we expected when doing the concept art. It took a few counter intuitive iterations and dreamy nights staring at pumpkins.
We have a feeling that a part of our creative director was glad it wasn’t working well, because he always felt that this version isn’t really it yet. Talk about high standards… if there was a Tinder application for art, he would probably be constantly swiping left.
Sooo (you know what comes next already), we waddled awaaay *waddle waddle* back to the drawing board.
Now wait, not joking here, another random thing happened… a potato.
Regardless if this was a thought out comment, or someone again pressed on “next word”, we all know how potato character drawings look stupidly cute.
It still didn’t satisfy that itch for the perfect looking Shoo… so we kept squishing Shoo.
Squishing and squashing him more and more to the ground in each of our iterations until the concepts progressed into a round, stupid, little potato that somehow turned out a million times cuter.
WE DID IT, WE FINALLY LANDED ON THE PERFECT SHOO… except not really. One more detail needed a makeover – the tail.
At one point we even tried ditching the tail, but after some testing we realized how crucial it is in the character design for gameplay – mainly in regards to quick and natural assessment of where your character is facing.
We even tried to bring back the magical aspect, taking inspiration also from DBZ – not turning him blond, but rather looking at Buu’s beam. If you were hoping to see Shoo turn Super-Saiyan, you might find some friends in our office.
We ended up on an enormous, it’s-so-fluffy-I’m-gonna-diiie, squirrel-looking tail… and that, ladies and gentlemen – squirrels and all hoomanz – is our final depiction of Shoo!
In regards to Shoo’s name, it had a few iterations as well. The first Placeholder was “Cernunnos”, and then there was a giant spreadsheet where everyone from the team just slapped all their ideas, they probably looked something like this dude when they were putting in their ideas. Some of our honorable mentions are: Lil’Hola, Nano Nymph, Deimouse, Skuggi, Vigur, Myrkur, Kuratoro, Ombro.
The final name “Shoo” interestingly enough wasn’t on that list – it was one of our naming options for the game. It just made so much sense for this little creature that keeps shooing the hoomanz away, and we liked how it sounds, so we used it for the main character.
Then we have all the animations and VFX to show you, but since this episode is already becoming longer than a 1-ply paper, let’s leave that for another episode.
For now, here’s a tiny concept tease:
Shoo had a long journey with our creative team, as you can see. But we hope you like our final version of Shoo and will grow to love this tiny creature even more during gameplay!
Gamescom is slowly creeping in on us, so if any one of you will be there, make sure to hit up our booth! We can give you even more insider info on Shoo.
Till next time, friends!