This week I’ve been doing more international travel, so I’ve had less time to work on Rads & Relics. Still, I’ve been using my time to focus on new character designs as part of Make-a-Character March, so today I wanted to share some reflections from this first week.

Design Space and Constraints

With Rads & Relics still in its early stages, I have a broad idea of the game, but much of it remains in flux. When I began designing characters, I had to decide whether to build them around the current state of the game or let them take shape independently and adjust the game accordingly. I opted for the latter approach. By allowing ideas to develop without constraints, I can explore what makes for compelling character design first and then refine the game’s mechanics and structure to support those ideas.

For example, one of the enemies I’ve been working on is a wolf. I wanted to give it an ability called “Pack Tactics,” where it deals additional damage when multiple wolves are nearby. Given the current scale of battles, implementing this effectively might be difficult. But instead of discarding the idea outright, I’m keeping it. Maybe the game’s scale can be adjusted to accommodate mechanics like this, or perhaps this mechanic will inspire a variation that fits better. Or maybe I drop this mechanic entirely. Regardless of the outcome, this gives me the chance to see what could be interesting in both the character designs and the game mechanics.

Tropes and Originality

Rads & Relics is set in a fantasy world but draws from other genres such as post-apocalyptic science fiction. These genres are rich with familiar tropes: dragons, orcs, mutants, etc. A key challenge is deciding when to embrace these familiar elements and when to push for something more unique.

Take the wolf, for example. Wolves are a staple in fantasy RPGs and strategy games; players immediately recognize them and know what to expect. But unless you add your own unique spin, there’s really nothing exciting about a wolf. On the other hand, I’ve been working on creatures called a clingling: a small, fuzzy beast that attaches itself to characters. While not a completely original concept, it demands more creativity in both design and gameplay mechanics compared to a conventional enemy.

I think that there’s room for both innovation and genre norms, and so I am trying to balance between the two as I continue the character designs (although I’ll also admit it may be dependent on how much energy I have during the design sessions; tropes are a lot easier to use than originality).

Game Art in the Age of AI

AI-generated art is a contentious topic. There are morality issues, there are legal issues, and there are aesthetic issues. But despite all of this, I do believe that AI is a tool that we can leverage in the game design process. As part of the character work, I’ve been experimenting with using AI for both concept art and game assets. So far, my experience has been mixed. DALL-E can do pretty decent concept art, but it really struggles with game assets. It’s been really hard for me to generate just a single character sprite instead of an entire sprite sheet. 

I’ve had better luck with PixelLabs, particularly when using strong initial images as a guide. Even then, AI-generated results still require heavy manual refinement to be truly useful in a game setting. I’m going to continue refining my process over the coming months, and we may do a more in depth blog post once I have some better thoughts.

State of the Game

Progress this week:

  • Character designs for Clingling, Wolf, Rotwalker, Rustborn Raider, and Scavenger Harpy.

Upcoming:

  • Continue developing new character designs. The primary focus this week will be on player characters instead of enemy characters.
  • Begin character implementation: Up to now, all the work has been in design files. Now it’s time to bring them to life in the game and see how they play in action.