Woad, also know as Asp of Jerusalem or Isatis tinctoria, is a yellow flowering plant in the cabbage family. Native to parts of Asia as well as Europe, the leaves of the plant were a key source of indigo dye during medieval times, but their use goes back to Neolithic times.
The first time I saw woad was in Braveheart, brilliantly used to adorn the faces of Scottish warriors. Interestingly Braveheart and his clansmen probably didnt wear woad, as it was a trend that predated the Scotsmans actions. More recently Ive seen woad used in Hellblade as a mask / makeup for its main character Senua.
I came across woad as an agent of opposition in Paul Freemans Tribesmans series. Freeman details a group of warriors covered and emboldened by woad. I liked this idea of a group of creatures empowered by a natural element like the dye from a plants leaves. (Sara and I are very keen to build Unto without the crutch of magic, no fireballs or lighting attacks. Any "magic" is rooted in natural elements. Fireballs are realized through a sort of molotov cocktail container, lighting through a static electricity rod, and so on.)
It was Freemans description of the Woad, mixed with its historical use that inspire Untos Woad.
Our first cut at the Woad was okay for the games concept, but ultimately feel short in a number of regards.
After the prototype phase we came up with a set of criteria for a well designed Unto creature. (We call them Actors, but Ill circle back to that in a later post.)
1, Must be visually distinct from the hero in shape and form
2, Must be able accommodate a believable societal structure, religious beliefs, historical context, etc.
3, Must not be obviously evil or dumb.
4, Must be realised enough that an expansion could be built around them as the main character.
(4) is really the main one. The way any Actor moves and feels must be interesting enough that we can quickly come up with a number of different adventures that they could go on, controlled by the player across 3-6 hours of gameplay.
And how they move needs to be distinct from the father. A bit of context. The father is a farmer that knows how to fight, hes not a soldier, chosen-one, or demi-god. His movement is heavy and a bit laboured. Take your average dad, fit but not a super athlete and imagine them on this journey of revenge. That's the father.
The woad shouldn't feel anything like the father. The Woad should agile and athletic, animalistic but intelligent, approachable but fearsome.
We started by iterating on the prototype-Woad, although we liked the adornments (and we'll probably use this in some form going forward), the fundamental form of the Woad was wrong. Too obvious, poorly proportioned, etc -- neither of us saw him as a main character capable of carrying a game.
So we started into sketches and mockups, both on paper and in Illustrator and 3d.
At first we really liked what we called the "Simian" woad, going so far as to do a quick 3d mockup. But, we quickly realised that the simian violated criteria (3) and would be a stretch for (4).
We ended up blending what we called the Warrior concept with the Simian concept. The warrior felt too upright, too human, while the simian felt too animalistic and simple, but together they struck a good balance.
This eventually evolved to include tweaked proportions (seen in gif below) and a more sophisticated skirt / kilt, inspired by samurai clothing.
The other big thing had to improve was their movement. The way the Woad moved in the concept was limited, they could run, dodge (using a roll) and jump. But they couldnt climb, ran more or less like the father and overall lacked the athletic personality we wanted for the Woad -- a Woad shouldn't roll, they should leap and bound athletically.
So we redesigned and rebuilt all of their animations. This and the in-game gif below are me controlling the Woad, using them in the same test terrain as the hero. The Woad lands with ease (while the hero will stumble from a long fall) climbs a cliff in one motion (while the hero labours to hold on and then pull himself over the ledge). We realised that actor movement couldnt live in isolation, it needed to be relative to the father. The player spends the whole game with the father, everything they meet will be assessed relative to the father and so everything needs to be designed in a way that reads in relation to what the player knows about the father.