Having begun development in 2019, S&M has seen characters go through many years of rewrites, redesigns, and reexaminations as the project has shifted through various phases.

This process has resulted in a number of characters having bits and pieces replaced over time, with some no longer resembling their original iterations. The Ship of Theseus comes to mind, as for all intents and purposes, some of the characters have been entirely stripped for parts, and others reassembled from the ground up. But with a narrative focusing closely on these characters and the stories surrounding them, it has resulted in extreme shifts for the broader narrative, with at times dozens of pages of content having to be left on the cutting room floor due to it no longer aligning with the characters as they are in contrast to them as they had been. There's an intersection between various elements of the design behind the project for one character I'll focus on in particular, 'Lamontz,' who was originally envisioned as the only viewpoint for those going through S&M. 

The manner in which Lamontz was developed differs greatly from a number of other characters within the project, as everything from his designs to his potential backstories was all meant to be determined via choices made by the player in the introduction. This was originally imagined to function in a manner similar to the opening sequence of Campo Santo's Firewatch (2016), with this text-based intro allowing the player to decide between various backgrounds, routes, traits, and cosmetic options. This ranged from roleplaying elements, such as substance abuse issues, to mechanics that would entirely upend the story between playthroughs, such as the inability to understand various languages spoken by members of the cast, enabling certain paths and closing off others entirely.

The piece above was the first series of concepts made for the character for the character during this experimental, which lasted from 2019 to 2021 and was referred to as the 'Odessa Interim Project,' as the direction of the game was still largely up in the air (as was its feasibility.) For those reading who have experience working on these sorts of projects, I'm sure the thought of having a protagonist split between four entirely unique paths and with several modifiers elicits a unique sense of dread. Needless to say, this era was short-lived, as it was simply not realistic given the scale of the project and the resources we had access to. Thus, we see the first shift in the project as the character of Lamontz is reduced from four routes into one, with various elements of the routes being tossed or upcycled. This push and pull between design and mechanics continued throughout this period of the project, with the mechanics referred to as 'Additional Look Modifiers' in the top-right of the concept piece being entirely scrapped only a short time later as the introduction was thrown out due to it no longer being necessary to provide a platform for the introduction of various routes.

Over the following year, the design would receive greater focus as the project continued to evolve and narrow its focus in certain aspects, especially in terms of mechanics. These changes were paired with a different style, this style change being a direct result of the need to simplify production and ensure that pieces would have a general standard shared amongst themselves. This effort would continue throughout the next two years as the project continued to sharpen itself, with the quality of the sprites produced obviously increasing as we familiarized ourselves with the design and physicality of the character. Around this time, the project began to experiment with styles, opting to use grayscale for a time, with only political symbolism, such as flags and emblems, having color. This lasted for quite some time and, as such, can help to place a number of pieces in specific periods of development.

This period saw what was largely the finalization of Lamontz as both a character and the designs associated with him. We deemed it important to give him a unique and quickly identifiable silhouette and color scheme, something especially necessary when he and all other characters and backgrounds were intended to be rendered in near-total grayscale.



However, this period ended as the project continued its development into 2023, and its tone and style desperately needed to be corrected to match the style within the writing and broader narrative. Take, for instance, his piercings, which were finally removed, having endured from the first redesign up until this point. A shift away from a singular protagonist was one of the first nails in the coffin of this particular characterization of Lamontz, as well as a reframing of the story being told. It became more of a hindrance to the project to build it around this character who was being actively rebuilt once more, and as such, the design went through its (as of now) most recent alterations.


The piece above, originally used as the header for our main page, marked the return of color, a reaffirmation of the loss of his piercings (at least at this point in the timeline), though with certain elements from previous designs still being carried over, particularly the silhouette.


The piece above is one of the more recent concept pieces for Lamontz, though it should be noted that things will no doubt change before his introduction within the story proper. One can quickly point out that his younger design (left) carries with it the same piercings as were included in the original redesign, while the design from a decade later (right) features elements from a number of various iterations of his design. Will these be the designs actually used when he is included within S&M? Who knows! All that we can say is that the process of balancing game mechanics, narrative, and character design for a project that has been in development for this long is a task that one shouldn't dismiss.

So, TL;DR, what is there to learn from all of this?

I would suggest that one shouldn't attach themselves to concepts from the earliest bits of a project, as you will no doubt eventually find yourself needing to alter designs and characters, if not scrape them outright. Your first crack at something will (probably!) not end up being the best, both in the sense of what you can do and what is 'best' for your narrative and game as a whole. If you have to throw out designs or elements of characters (i.e., their lore, mechanics, etc.), it'll force you to examine a character and the whole of their competition for what does and does not work. Attachment to a character that has been with you and your project since the start can be strong, but sometimes it may turn out to be more of a ball-and-chain situation than anything else!

Remember that these sorts of things take time; the stuff detailed above covers development between 2019-2023/4, so this sort of stuff doesn't appear out of thin air overnight. Or maybe for you, it will! I dunno! This is, of course,  all incredibly subjective and no doubt will vary greatly between people and projects, so take this all with a rather large serving of salt.

All the best, and happy developing!

-Lajos