We’ve been pleasantly surprised with the reception to our first devlog. Many thanks to the three people who actually read it. Since we included more pictures, we hope to bring that number to four and a half this time.
Close in for the Skill
Characters having unique skills seems a pretty uncontroversial idea; it’s even been made semi-official, as Kim Kitsuragi jackets sold on the official store grant bonuses to skills Harry doesn’t posses, such as Volta Do Mar, a skill presumably exclusive to the lieutenant from Precinct 57. However, the clothes also imply Kim has skills in common with his partner; namely Hand-Eye Coordination and Interfacing.
A reasonable interpretation would be that there is a pool of “core” skills common to most everyone, which are complimented by personal skills, unique to each psyche (or at least much rarer). We at Longhaulers are not reasonable people. DCA’s brain only houses unique skills, distinct from those Disco players are familiar with.
They’re looking for us.
For this part of the devlog, I’ve interviewed Duyton, Lieutenant Zero-Yefreitor of the Art Division, on a skill he contributed to design: Wire.
Q : First of all, what skills did you work on ?
A : I made the designs for [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and Wire. I also helped render YEAH THOSE ARE [REDACTED] TOO, and [REDACTED]!
Q : Among them, what’s your favourite ?
A : I have a soft spot for Wire. Despite how much we argued over the portrait, I still had a lot of fun iterating on it. So many Wire designs were proposed and tossed, but they were all really solid! I like the one we settled on, mainly for the brushwork and the pleasing arrangement of values.
Q : How would you describe Wire to our readers who have no familiarity with the skill ?
A : Wire is DCA’s fight-or-flight response, manifesting as hypervigilance and paranoia. It’s DCA’s version of Half-Light — but he isn’t a cop. He’s lived an extremely different life than Harry.
Wire isn’t linked to anger, and is instead based on DCA’s understanding of his own vulnerability.
Q : What inspired Wire’s portrait ? That is, skills from the base game and other sources of inspiration.
A : The most obvious inspiration for Wire is Half-Light; they’re both skills about fear. We took a lot of time discussing the differences between the two skills — we talked about how Half-Light was Harry’s underlying tendency for violence as an alcoholic cop, and how Wire was more so DCA’s observant paranoia as a traumatized homeless man.
“It could have fleas. Rabies. Something worse. It could have cancer. Or another owner. Or, or even if it’s none of those things, if it becomes a friend, friends don’t stick around. Let it go.“
Other than Half-Light, we drew inspiration from Esprit de Corps and Perception. We wanted to emulate Esprit de Corps’ ambiguity and highly textured brushwork because we wanted the portrait to look “raw”. I figured Wire was also a perceptive skill, so the “explosion lines” from Wire’s face are meant to mimic the converging lines from Perception that evoke the idea of perceiving the world around you.
Q : Skills in DE often rely on the viewer’s interpretation. How do you interpret the portrait, and how do you think or hope players might experience it?
A : The portrait is of a figure you’ve snuck up on from behind, hence why you see their back. They just turned to assess the threat and are now in the split-second where they must choose whether to run or fight, like a wounded dog.
The lines around the face are pretty ambiguous; could be urgent signals being received directly to the head. The face could also be exploding like a popping balloon, something both violent and fragile. In a similar vein, the lines could be shrapnel firing out of the head like a grenade.
All of these interpretations are meant to evoke the idea of something erratic and unstable, the mindset of someone living “on the wire”.
That’s you. You are the wretched place.
Let’s move on to one of the more unique skills in DCA’s arsenal of cranial voices, Dark Matter, for which I have to admit my bias, as it originates from the first pitch I ever made for this mod. To avoid too much self-indulgent boasting (and keep it to the regular amount of self-indulgent boasting), it will be presented by the esteemed Sab, The Creator.
Heads-up: Dark Matter deals with themes of self-loathing and depression. Feel free to skip to the Reader’s Questions section if you don’t feel like dealing with this right now.
Q : First of all, what skills did you work on ?
A : All of them, though most of my contribution comes in the form of artistic feedback, minor edits, and small adjustments. More substantial cooperation with other artists happened with [REDACTED], Wire, [REDACTED], and [GUESS WHAT].
The skills that I largely made by myself are: Dark Matter and [IN YOUR DREAMS, BUCKO].
Q : Among them, what’s your favourite, and how would you describe it to our readers ?
A : My favorite portrait is Dark Matter. It’s supposed to evoke the feeling of being judged, or impending doom. It’s a head bowed, heavy with shame, stress, or both.
Q : What inspired Dark Matter’s portrait? That is, skills from the base game and other sources of inspiration.
A : Dark Matter was one of the most difficult portraits, design-wise. The initial sketches were evoking too much visible distress and/or misery, while Dark Matter was supposed to be more of an underlying dread. Something you can feel but can’t quite put your finger on.
Early explorations of the Dark Matter portrait.
One day, I sat down and started drawing some loose shapes, when I suddenly made a thick stroke with my textured brush that resembled a forehead emerging from the darkness beneath. Adding facial features to it cemented the idea.
Q : Skills in DE often rely on the viewer’s interpretation. How do you interpret the portrait, and how do you think or hope players might experience it?
A : Dark Matter is DCA’s shame and self-loathing. We are hoping that players experience it as something like a disappointed father, one you aren’t ever able to do right by, no matter how hard you try.
“Here lies the last man capable of seeing the person you could have been. What seemed to be the beginning of your potentially glorious last chapter turned out to be its tragic ending, and it’s just as well. Redemption requires commitment, discipline, abstinence, sobriety, impulse control, mental stability—so much work.“
Reader’s Questions
Since none of you bothered to use the wonderful decades-old system of e-mail communication, I’ve taken the liberty to answer a question that was asked several times under the reddit post. If you don’t want to be drowned in the maybe-washed masses of the orange website or develop your thoughts in the expanses of the Pale (your preferred e-mail system’s drafts), you can send any future questions to [email protected].
Q : I want to contribute to this project, where do I sign up?
A : We’re not currently recruiting, but we will probably be asking for applications soon™. When time comes, we’ll inform you in the next devlog and on reddit.
That’s it for this week. See you possibly next week for a hypothetical devlog on the uncertain subject of whatever our technical wizards are doing.
Skill yourself,
Skullhead McShay
Professional Goobster, Amateur Serious Person™.