Proyect Dragon: Everhaven
What Could've been.
Project Dragon, or Everhaven, was a proyect I recently found of just after it was canceled. I was SO MAD, because the concept is so good, and the reason for it's cancelation is just another reason why I hate when companies refuse to take risks, even when the ideas conjoured are so good.The developers were Pheonix Labs, but the main lead concept artist is Nicholas Kole, who shared an entire thread of just art after art after art of everything he has done for the project. Which I think it's worthy to be preserved somewhere else.
From the Thread:
"One of the first creature ideas I pitched at the start of Dragon was the Pinoceros, and it stuck! Erika & I went on a walk in the woods talking about the project, our early memories of playing pretend in the forest, favorite rpgs, and by the time we got back the pino was hatched!"
"One of the most important designs of the whole project for me was Oca! Our ocarina golem. I kept telling my teammates “we need weirdos! Weird little guys!” But everyone really understood once I came in Monday with Oca to pitch. He’s a living clay ocarina with accordion arms 🎵"
WELL… pic.twitter.com/jSSAWzxNo2
— Nicholas Kole (@FromHappyRock) July 15, 2024
"@MonarchAudio was our composer, and he wrote a lovely and evocative theme for Oca that played at his locations…I love Cris’ work, and the way music inspires and deepens concept’s emotional dimensions is one of my favorite aspects of game dev"
@MonarchAudio was our composer, and he wrote a lovely and evocative theme for Oca that played at his locations…I love Cris’ work, and the way music inspires and deepens concept’s emotional dimensions is one of my favorite aspects of game dev pic.twitter.com/cnQ7n8ufXL
— Nicholas Kole (@FromHappyRock) July 15, 2024
"An especially rewarding part of the process is layering the worldbuilding with deeper design work
Oca was our ambassador for musical crafting, as well as one of the last survivors of an ancient civilization. Musical props, carvings and notation, and a collectible pet named Rocca!"
"Another key hero NPC from Project Dragon was Effie and her mount and best friend, Pacer. Effie is a courier and founder of the Red Wyverns, dedicated to connecting folks across the changeable landscape of the Inner Lands by mail. Tuning her chair/saddle in was a great puzzle"
"Effie and Oca are 2 of 5 core heroes who represented pillars of gameplay, grounded our games story, and were intended to feature in special cinematics (lovingly storyboards by my wife @erkshnrt) ✅Music, ✅Mounts- more to come…"
"I imagined Pacer as the "Porsche of Plain Wyverns"- a species of mounts (and pets, lookat the babyyyy) for the player to collect and ride. Effie acted as ambassador to the world of mounts and traveling the world at speed- and there are lots more of THOSE too o_o"
"Fun fact: Project Dragon was going to be fully voiced. Attending the VO sessions was a highlight in a project full of highlights- I wish y’all could have met and heard Effie, she was terrific."
"And here's the REAL kicker: The translation from concept to 3D on this game was STUNNING. All these were handled by the incredible @Saintz3d, who lead our modeling team to incredible heights."
"With each design my mission was to surprise and delight. We tried to mix a healthy dose of the warmth and familiarly of fantasy comfort food, with new and compelling details for players to discover under scrutiny over time 💜"
"Effie and Oca are 2 of 5 core heroes who represented pillars of gameplay, grounded our games story, and were intended to feature in special cinematics (lovingly storyboards by my wife @erkshnrt) ✅Music, ✅Mounts- more to come…"
"I imagined Pacer as the "Porsche of Plain Wyverns"- a species of mounts (and pets, lookat the babyyyy) for the player to collect and ride. Effie acted as ambassador to the world of mounts and traveling the world at speed- and there are lots more of THOSE too o_o"
"Fun fact: Project Dragon was going to be fully voiced. Attending the VO sessions was a highlight in a project full of highlights- I wish y’all could have met and heard Effie, she was terrific."
"And here's the REAL kicker: The translation from concept to 3D on this game was STUNNING. All these were handled by the incredible @Saintz3d, who lead our modeling team to incredible heights."
"With each design my mission was to surprise and delight. We tried to mix a healthy dose of the warmth and familiarly of fantasy comfort food, with new and compelling details for players to discover under scrutiny over time 💜"
"Speaking of mounts like the Plains Wyvern! Project Dragon had a whole range of mounts planned (and sculpted) (and animated). We jammed on novel mount ideas as a team, pitching different movement styles & personalities. The Trundlepillar was a big hit and I'm still proud of him 😭"
"Please behold my beautiful babies ✨these mounts didn’t quite make it into the game itself, but they inspired great conversations about rolling, hopping, and sliding"
"I loved that the team- animators, riggers, modelers and designers were all excited to push things as far as we could- these mounts didn't quite make the cut, but we learned so much from trying to figure out "why not?"'
"I wracked my brain to come up with novel ways to move- diving in and out of the ground (like a- dare I say- streetshark 😂), surfing a slithering sidewinder, kite surfing behind a big ball of fuzz-"
"Please behold my beautiful babies ✨these mounts didn’t quite make it into the game itself, but they inspired great conversations about rolling, hopping, and sliding"
"I loved that the team- animators, riggers, modelers and designers were all excited to push things as far as we could- these mounts didn't quite make the cut, but we learned so much from trying to figure out "why not?"'
"I wracked my brain to come up with novel ways to move- diving in and out of the ground (like a- dare I say- streetshark 😂), surfing a slithering sidewinder, kite surfing behind a big ball of fuzz-"
"We had many regions planned- but we started out (and for launch, scoped down to) the Inner Lands- a cosy pastoral paradise of rolling fields, lush forests, and alpine slopes. With these mounts I was trying to find "our iconic Inner Lands starter mount" and the Wyvern stuck!"
"It didn’t hit the spot at time, but I’m still tickled by the idea of “what if you rode a cow, but it was arranged like a velociraptor” I’ll have to find another way to try that one some day"
"Continuing the mount theme- as we honed in on the mounts we wanted to feature early in the game, archetypes and versatility for animation became important factors. So we knew we wanted a cat-type mount, but how to add that element of the unexpected? Bickering sentient tails!!"
"After the Wyern was locked in, one of the mounts that everyone agreed was a win was our Twicetail! I'll admit, I was a bit bored with "let's just do a cat one" as a brief until I hit on the living bird tails idea-"
"It didn’t hit the spot at time, but I’m still tickled by the idea of “what if you rode a cow, but it was arranged like a velociraptor” I’ll have to find another way to try that one some day"
"Continuing the mount theme- as we honed in on the mounts we wanted to feature early in the game, archetypes and versatility for animation became important factors. So we knew we wanted a cat-type mount, but how to add that element of the unexpected? Bickering sentient tails!!"
"After the Wyern was locked in, one of the mounts that everyone agreed was a win was our Twicetail! I'll admit, I was a bit bored with "let's just do a cat one" as a brief until I hit on the living bird tails idea-"
"The Twicetail was chosen as one of our early mounts, since we knew players would love cat-inspired antics & mannerisms...AND the classic quadrupedal design meant it was perfect for inventing new friends that could use the same core set of animations (with a couple fun flourishes)"
"Whenever I think about skinning something, I really push to see how far we can possibly go. The Gryphon design felt like a big win- toggling between the sentient tails and a secret third more conventional tail hidden in the rig gave us a lot of leeway!"
From Lucas St. Martin: "Another wonderful mount design for #projectdragon from @FromHappyRock The Twilight Twicetail. We had about 12-15 mounts ready to go for launch (And many more post launch) All different shapes and sizes, designed to delight every possible type of player."
From Nicholas Kole: "Seeing them come to life in sculpt was the best part of each day- checking the slack channel to see what new treasures were waiting. I found that, at least for me and with this team, working with a more line-driven style made the transition to 3D smoother!"
From Lucas St. Martin: "More Variants (I did not try the Jelly Shader... I learned my lesson)"
"Whenever I think about skinning something, I really push to see how far we can possibly go. The Gryphon design felt like a big win- toggling between the sentient tails and a secret third more conventional tail hidden in the rig gave us a lot of leeway!"
From Lucas St. Martin: "Another wonderful mount design for #projectdragon from @FromHappyRock The Twilight Twicetail. We had about 12-15 mounts ready to go for launch (And many more post launch) All different shapes and sizes, designed to delight every possible type of player."
From Nicholas Kole: "Seeing them come to life in sculpt was the best part of each day- checking the slack channel to see what new treasures were waiting. I found that, at least for me and with this team, working with a more line-driven style made the transition to 3D smoother!"
Another wonderful mount design for #projectdragon from @FromHappyRock The Twilight Twicetail. We had about 12-15 mounts ready to go for launch (And many more post launch) All different shapes and sizes, designed to delight every possible type of player. pic.twitter.com/5pTgeTEYR4
— Lucas St. Martin (@Saintz3d) July 17, 2024
From Lucas St. Martin: "More Variants (I did not try the Jelly Shader... I learned my lesson)"
From Cami 🐸 @camisleeps: "Some more characters I worked on for Project Dragon! Morgan was actually my first task on the project, and I remember being so excited about it 💛
Nicholas and Josh gave amazing feedback and were so incredibly kind! Hope you'll like these two as much as I enjoyed the process!"
From Nicholas Kole: "Camille came in midstream and instantly “got it”, she handled a lot of our Villager NPCs scattered around the landscape of Dragon. Each design she brought was *so* charming. It’s one thing to make “cool” designs, but our mission was to design with emotion and she nailed it ✨"
From Nicholas Kole: "Camille came in midstream and instantly “got it”, she handled a lot of our Villager NPCs scattered around the landscape of Dragon. Each design she brought was *so* charming. It’s one thing to make “cool” designs, but our mission was to design with emotion and she nailed it ✨"
"Naturally, we had humans (like Effie!) But things got more interesting exploring "how far can we push the rig while inventing fantasy races?", then I pitched "if we just added a muzzle, we could get better dragon and catfolk", and THEN the gravity of "WHAT IF THEY WERE KIDS?" hit"
"Round 1 of playable races! Some hits, some misses, but it’s always an interesting challenge to design within limits. In this case the hope was to find as much variety as possible while sharing a rig/animations (eyes, mouths in the same general place- no big new moving parts)"
"Just from these loose sheets, things started to snowball- I started writing & making moodboards...the world and its cultures started to grow in our conversations I was especially excited about Lunicorns (pastel goth and dreamy) and Endurant (geode-inspired stone automatons)"
"And how did they look in game? Not to be hyperbolic but uhhhh...the translation to 3D was a triumph (sculpt here by @airbornstudios) And this is just the start- these were draft 1. Once we knew our scope, we picked a set of first-ups and dug deeper into their design and cultures"
"Round 1 of playable races! Some hits, some misses, but it’s always an interesting challenge to design within limits. In this case the hope was to find as much variety as possible while sharing a rig/animations (eyes, mouths in the same general place- no big new moving parts)"
"Just from these loose sheets, things started to snowball- I started writing & making moodboards...the world and its cultures started to grow in our conversations I was especially excited about Lunicorns (pastel goth and dreamy) and Endurant (geode-inspired stone automatons)"
"And how did they look in game? Not to be hyperbolic but uhhhh...the translation to 3D was a triumph (sculpt here by @airbornstudios) And this is just the start- these were draft 1. Once we knew our scope, we picked a set of first-ups and dug deeper into their design and cultures"
"Digging into each race/culture really drove home lessons I started learning 15+ years ago. Namely, that every detail can be *specific*- and specificity is the lifeblood of storytelling. I thought of friends as I worked thru these- tried to draw for them"
"We began to commit to the first handful of customizable races. Cultures & personalities began to percolate, and of course- we needed to explore character creation! Our Fauns are a scrappy, mountain-dwelling folk- I wanted hair, horns, faces all to tell their stories 🐐"
"When you focus on people you know & love, and what might appeal especially to them, character design (and specificity) becomes much easier. In a way, the whole process is like wrapping gifts for Christmas, anticipating players opening them some day"
"Playable race I had the most fun fleshing out? Gotta be our floral folk, the Valekin. Such a rich vein to mine, trying to pull from trees, flowers, mushrooms, fruits and veggies all in the service of personality and world building. What’s your fav?"
"This might not be the way we intended the world to encounter our Fauns, or Valekin- but there's a deep catharsis in finally getting to share & seeing that even in concept form, they're connecting with people! Be it ever so bittersweet, it's still Christmas."
"The Valekin occupied the archetype of elves for us- connected to nature, magic and the spirits. To help the team get our heads around them as a culture I did some explorations to establish motifs (plenty of art-nouveau). And worked up some very basic tier-1 starter outfits."
"We began to commit to the first handful of customizable races. Cultures & personalities began to percolate, and of course- we needed to explore character creation! Our Fauns are a scrappy, mountain-dwelling folk- I wanted hair, horns, faces all to tell their stories 🐐"
"When you focus on people you know & love, and what might appeal especially to them, character design (and specificity) becomes much easier. In a way, the whole process is like wrapping gifts for Christmas, anticipating players opening them some day"
"Playable race I had the most fun fleshing out? Gotta be our floral folk, the Valekin. Such a rich vein to mine, trying to pull from trees, flowers, mushrooms, fruits and veggies all in the service of personality and world building. What’s your fav?"
"This might not be the way we intended the world to encounter our Fauns, or Valekin- but there's a deep catharsis in finally getting to share & seeing that even in concept form, they're connecting with people! Be it ever so bittersweet, it's still Christmas."
"The Valekin occupied the archetype of elves for us- connected to nature, magic and the spirits. To help the team get our heads around them as a culture I did some explorations to establish motifs (plenty of art-nouveau). And worked up some very basic tier-1 starter outfits."
"And at least to me (and I know to a lot of the team, watching from out scattered homes) it still matters a lot. We hoped each player would find something, maybe even more somethings than they could choose between, to fall in love with and identify as."
"And you knew this was coming. What would Project Dragon be without playable Dragonfolk?? We called ours the Wyvarr and if you could define my comfort zone, it would absolutely look like this 😅"
"Heroes capture all that work, and bundle it into a narrative, nuanced design statement that could only grow by first laying thoughtful groundwork! With NPCs like Graf, we got to flex and forget budget- really tell our story through design"
"Our most important Wyvarr (dragonfolk) was Graf, the Forgemaster! One of the 5 heroes of the Inner Lands and Project Dragon's saddest dad. Most of the game was cosy and cheerful- graf added a sullen, combat-oriented undertone to his corner of the game. And voice acting? 👨🍳✨
"Graf grew from an early concept for a wyvarr with anvil horns I called Kaerus. As he grew into a final design I felt pretty pleased with myself- unntilll I realized I didn't design as functional an arm as I thought! Some revisions and a KILLER model by Tanner Roberts later and ✨"
From Lucas St. Martin:"Tanner really crushed it. Probably his best work on the project. 🤌 Here... Haz Vignette I made for the website buildout. All credit to Tanner and the Enviro Crew @orb_3d Bryan Marony, @AllardJulien and @airbornstudios for the models!"
"And you knew this was coming. What would Project Dragon be without playable Dragonfolk?? We called ours the Wyvarr and if you could define my comfort zone, it would absolutely look like this 😅"
"Heroes capture all that work, and bundle it into a narrative, nuanced design statement that could only grow by first laying thoughtful groundwork! With NPCs like Graf, we got to flex and forget budget- really tell our story through design"
"Our most important Wyvarr (dragonfolk) was Graf, the Forgemaster! One of the 5 heroes of the Inner Lands and Project Dragon's saddest dad. Most of the game was cosy and cheerful- graf added a sullen, combat-oriented undertone to his corner of the game. And voice acting? 👨🍳✨
"Graf grew from an early concept for a wyvarr with anvil horns I called Kaerus. As he grew into a final design I felt pretty pleased with myself- unntilll I realized I didn't design as functional an arm as I thought! Some revisions and a KILLER model by Tanner Roberts later and ✨"
From Lucas St. Martin:"Tanner really crushed it. Probably his best work on the project. 🤌 Here... Haz Vignette I made for the website buildout. All credit to Tanner and the Enviro Crew @orb_3d Bryan Marony, @AllardJulien and @airbornstudios for the models!"
"Purrans were one of my favorite examples of the ways we tried to mix of the 70% warmth and familiarity of your favorite fantasy comfort food with 30% surprise and delight. We knew with our cat folk, we’d connect with folks who are already primed to love them-"
"Alright! TIME FOR CATS!. Project Dragon had 5 playable races scoped for our launch in the starter region- Humans, Fauns, Wyvarr, Valekin and: Purrans! Our cat folk were a culture of traveling performers with a rich tradition of theater-
"And I need y'all to know- when I say we had cats...they were like *good* good Sculpts here by our teammates at @airbornstudios and I think some from @Saintz3d."
"Purran theatrical tradition was inspired by masked Italian renaissance theater (commedia dell'arte), and each mask correlated with an on-stage archetype! They told their story through of their wanderings via the patchwork on their garments- each patch a memory. Elders collect 9-
"By deepening the story of their culture’s theater and patchwork, then telling it through costumes, props, locations, and quests- we knew we had that 30% twist that got us excited creatively! And usually it’s a good sign- when the team is excited, players will be too."
"Now that you know about the Purrans, it’s time to meet Leadona! 4th of our 5 Inner Lands heroes, and the leader of a Purran theater troupe. Alongside her companion Gran- a grumpy haunted mask animated by the spirit of her grandmother 💜 #ProjectDragon."
"Leadona took all that work, the theater, the patchwork, the colors and shapes- and embodied them in a single design! Probably one of my favorite designs in the project bc she channels just a little bit of that formative Redwall energy from my childhood 💜."
"We planned to tell the story of our characters through cinematics that were driven by the aesthetics and motifs of their cultures. Leadona & Gran’s intergenerational conflict played out via quilted patchwork!
(And Leadona herself got a revised half mask and cape along the way)
"Alright! TIME FOR CATS!. Project Dragon had 5 playable races scoped for our launch in the starter region- Humans, Fauns, Wyvarr, Valekin and: Purrans! Our cat folk were a culture of traveling performers with a rich tradition of theater-
"And I need y'all to know- when I say we had cats...they were like *good* good Sculpts here by our teammates at @airbornstudios and I think some from @Saintz3d."
"Purran theatrical tradition was inspired by masked Italian renaissance theater (commedia dell'arte), and each mask correlated with an on-stage archetype! They told their story through of their wanderings via the patchwork on their garments- each patch a memory. Elders collect 9-
"By deepening the story of their culture’s theater and patchwork, then telling it through costumes, props, locations, and quests- we knew we had that 30% twist that got us excited creatively! And usually it’s a good sign- when the team is excited, players will be too."
"Now that you know about the Purrans, it’s time to meet Leadona! 4th of our 5 Inner Lands heroes, and the leader of a Purran theater troupe. Alongside her companion Gran- a grumpy haunted mask animated by the spirit of her grandmother 💜 #ProjectDragon."
"Leadona took all that work, the theater, the patchwork, the colors and shapes- and embodied them in a single design! Probably one of my favorite designs in the project bc she channels just a little bit of that formative Redwall energy from my childhood 💜."
"We planned to tell the story of our characters through cinematics that were driven by the aesthetics and motifs of their cultures. Leadona & Gran’s intergenerational conflict played out via quilted patchwork!
(And Leadona herself got a revised half mask and cape along the way)
"Alright, friendsss...it's time to talk about the pets of Project Dragon. Inspired by different biomes, pets roamed the wilds of the world, waiting to be tamed and raised by intrepid players. The Firbuddle was a shy, gentle creature found among the pine forests of the highlands"
"Of course, the world of Dragon was populated by more than just NPCs. One of our classes of creature were collectible pets! Fun fact- since the whole game worked on a voxel grid, pets were required to fit within a 1x1 cube, which provided an interesting character design challenge!"
"aaaaand yeah- in the hands of Chloe Labbe at @airbornstudios, he looked terrific in his game model."
"Mudpuppies, naturally drawn to people, spawn near gardens and signs of civilization to make an absolute mess. I imagined them as a misfired spell to create a gardening familiar that proliferated out of control! #ProjectDragon."
"I made a pet plan trying to take into account all the different climate, biome, day/night considerations as well as trying to make sure we had pets for each type of player we anticipated- some edgier, more goofy, adorable, mysterious, made of dirt-"
"One of my proudest pet designs for Project Dragon was the Yaga! We had a spooky forest biome planned, and imagined these wandering through the woods hooting ominously. The tricky part was getting their mouth to completely disappear when closed- but we managed it!"
"Digging back through each concept is kinda painful- it's hard to accept that you can love working on something this much, and be powerless to do anything but watch someone shut it down. Every game that gets launched is a miracle."
"Pets of Project Dragon, day 2! Up in the highlands, among the crags and cliffs, you might find a windhorn, hopping from stone to stone, the mountaintop winds catching in their horns and playing a soft tune ✨"
"Connection is the point- knowing that folks out here are still delighted by the concepts and the idea of Dragon, means it wasn't wasted effort. Getting to spend 3+ years, daily dipping into this world for a living was its own reward too."
'Extremely shy and clumsy, Brumps are often frightened by the loud sound of their own hops"
"There's so much to share! I don't know any other way to share it, to do the effort justice, except one piece at a time. Brace yourselves for like...*several more weeks* of Dragon art...months maybe?"
"Come meet a little guy. Just a little guy here. Is he fierce? absolutely. Loyal? you bet. Hypoallergenic? That depends on how you do with feathers. Puppogrifs can't fly, but they can jump a *little* higher if they flap hard enough."
"It was fun to imagine, as I sat down to each pet, or mount, or playable race, that it might be one person's particular favorite some day!"
(Nax's notes here: I am. That's me, I'm that person who the Puppogrifts are their favorite. They are everything to me, and I want one. If anything happened to the Puppogrifs, I will kill everyone in this room and then myself /ref.)
"In the forests of the Inner Lands, in still ponds and swamps under the trees, if you're very still and watch for moving lilypads you might encounter a Marshfello! Shy and sweet natured, they make excellent friends if you're lucky enough to meet one. #ProjectDragon"
"I wish I had access to my pet chart to show y'all- it was fun to balance the whole set of what we were planning to offer like "hmmm...needs more big idiots" "too few dimwitted sweetie pies"
From Airborn Studios: "The Marshfello is only one of, we dunno, 3 or 4 bajillion of INSANELY adorable creatures you'd encounter in #ProjectDragon. Who wouldn't want to adopt this fella, no? 3D work by Chris Fischer. https://artstation.com/artwork/1xdy3Z #3dart #3dmodeling"
From Nicholas Kole: "BEHOLD THE CHILD"
"If you're a scrappy little fellow yourself, you might meet your match in a boisterous pet Thunknoggin. Just follow the sound of breaking boulders to your nearest shallow cave- but watch your shins! #ProjectDragon."
"You ever want to see an aggressive little Koala dinosaur with a turtle shell head and Koopa vibes? Yeah me neither. I think my desire to pitch this one descends directly from the pachycephalosaur scene in land before time??"
"Sometimes you have a whole lineup of pets, and you step back to see what's missing and realize you need to design something PINK. Like so pink it makes your teeth hurt! @erkshnrt's favorite pet, the rare Fleuralin! Plant juuust the right flowers, and you might attract one 🌷"
"Fantasy pet design is so fun- there’s an element of worldbuilding, of balancing biomes and imagining context like a mental Pokémon snap. But the collectible element resonates so much- trying to design for variety and grabby-hands appeal across different archetypes and aesthetics"
"While the pets of a Project Dragon had to fit in a 1x1 voxel cube, we had more room to play with for mount design. One of my favorite creatures was our mushroom inspired Landta Ray! Mantas have been my favorite animal for ages, I was so psyched we had a slot for one!"
"The Landta Ray mount was one of the 4-5 mount movement archetypes we picked for launch! We had the wyvern of course- bipedal & dinosauresque. The twicetail covered most cat/wolf quadrupeds, an equine, and this fellow! Loved that he was less conventional."
"Out of gratitude for the enthusiasm and energy of the Project Dragon petition, I'm breaking from sticking purely to sharing pet concepts and tossing up another one of our mounts! Thanks everyone in the #BringBackProjectDragon tag- it's been great to see love for the project 💜"
"When thinking "how can we skin the mount designs to get the maximum amount of variety without obvious reuse?", It's harder to hide your tracks on something with a more unique movement signature. I took that as a challenge and tried to make sure we kept it!"
"The last major skin on the Landta Ray mount skeleton was the Bramble Skimmer! Ancient tech from a forgotten civilization. I reckon you can feel my Atlantis and Shadow Of The Colossus influences 😅 #ProjectDragon."
"In a lot of ways we were creating the world and our new IP one design at a time- there was so much exciting room to pitch, work closely with our narrative team, and establish visuals like this ancient tech mount that would give us loads of room to expand down the line."
Trying to keep up the pace so this doesn’t stretch for months 😅
GOLITH! A curious living geode!
Frubble- a floating oddball frog bubble who loves yellow flowers!
Cottontail- based on an adorable concept from @Leehez_00
Cave Scoveler- digging a tunnel? he wants to help!
"The Moondrake! We love crows in this household, and any chance to work a crow inspired fantasy creature into a project is a chance I'm going to take. Moondrakes were a nocturnal pet and resident of the spooky forest biome!
"he was originally inspired by some little loosely painted guys in what I *think* was an @chan_mydia painting of a witch's tower. I spent a little after-hours time tidying it up without a solid spot to slot it into the game- but once pets rolled around it was TIME."
"Of course, the world of Dragon was populated by more than just NPCs. One of our classes of creature were collectible pets! Fun fact- since the whole game worked on a voxel grid, pets were required to fit within a 1x1 cube, which provided an interesting character design challenge!"
"aaaaand yeah- in the hands of Chloe Labbe at @airbornstudios, he looked terrific in his game model."
"Mudpuppies, naturally drawn to people, spawn near gardens and signs of civilization to make an absolute mess. I imagined them as a misfired spell to create a gardening familiar that proliferated out of control! #ProjectDragon."
"I made a pet plan trying to take into account all the different climate, biome, day/night considerations as well as trying to make sure we had pets for each type of player we anticipated- some edgier, more goofy, adorable, mysterious, made of dirt-"
"One of my proudest pet designs for Project Dragon was the Yaga! We had a spooky forest biome planned, and imagined these wandering through the woods hooting ominously. The tricky part was getting their mouth to completely disappear when closed- but we managed it!"
"Digging back through each concept is kinda painful- it's hard to accept that you can love working on something this much, and be powerless to do anything but watch someone shut it down. Every game that gets launched is a miracle."
"Pets of Project Dragon, day 2! Up in the highlands, among the crags and cliffs, you might find a windhorn, hopping from stone to stone, the mountaintop winds catching in their horns and playing a soft tune ✨"
"Connection is the point- knowing that folks out here are still delighted by the concepts and the idea of Dragon, means it wasn't wasted effort. Getting to spend 3+ years, daily dipping into this world for a living was its own reward too."
'Extremely shy and clumsy, Brumps are often frightened by the loud sound of their own hops"
"There's so much to share! I don't know any other way to share it, to do the effort justice, except one piece at a time. Brace yourselves for like...*several more weeks* of Dragon art...months maybe?"
"Come meet a little guy. Just a little guy here. Is he fierce? absolutely. Loyal? you bet. Hypoallergenic? That depends on how you do with feathers. Puppogrifs can't fly, but they can jump a *little* higher if they flap hard enough."
"It was fun to imagine, as I sat down to each pet, or mount, or playable race, that it might be one person's particular favorite some day!"
(Nax's notes here: I am. That's me, I'm that person who the Puppogrifts are their favorite. They are everything to me, and I want one. If anything happened to the Puppogrifs, I will kill everyone in this room and then myself /ref.)
"In the forests of the Inner Lands, in still ponds and swamps under the trees, if you're very still and watch for moving lilypads you might encounter a Marshfello! Shy and sweet natured, they make excellent friends if you're lucky enough to meet one. #ProjectDragon"
"I wish I had access to my pet chart to show y'all- it was fun to balance the whole set of what we were planning to offer like "hmmm...needs more big idiots" "too few dimwitted sweetie pies"
From Airborn Studios: "The Marshfello is only one of, we dunno, 3 or 4 bajillion of INSANELY adorable creatures you'd encounter in #ProjectDragon. Who wouldn't want to adopt this fella, no? 3D work by Chris Fischer. https://artstation.com/artwork/1xdy3Z #3dart #3dmodeling"
From Nicholas Kole: "BEHOLD THE CHILD"
"If you're a scrappy little fellow yourself, you might meet your match in a boisterous pet Thunknoggin. Just follow the sound of breaking boulders to your nearest shallow cave- but watch your shins! #ProjectDragon."
"You ever want to see an aggressive little Koala dinosaur with a turtle shell head and Koopa vibes? Yeah me neither. I think my desire to pitch this one descends directly from the pachycephalosaur scene in land before time??"
"Sometimes you have a whole lineup of pets, and you step back to see what's missing and realize you need to design something PINK. Like so pink it makes your teeth hurt! @erkshnrt's favorite pet, the rare Fleuralin! Plant juuust the right flowers, and you might attract one 🌷"
"Fantasy pet design is so fun- there’s an element of worldbuilding, of balancing biomes and imagining context like a mental Pokémon snap. But the collectible element resonates so much- trying to design for variety and grabby-hands appeal across different archetypes and aesthetics"
"While the pets of a Project Dragon had to fit in a 1x1 voxel cube, we had more room to play with for mount design. One of my favorite creatures was our mushroom inspired Landta Ray! Mantas have been my favorite animal for ages, I was so psyched we had a slot for one!"
"The Landta Ray mount was one of the 4-5 mount movement archetypes we picked for launch! We had the wyvern of course- bipedal & dinosauresque. The twicetail covered most cat/wolf quadrupeds, an equine, and this fellow! Loved that he was less conventional."
"Out of gratitude for the enthusiasm and energy of the Project Dragon petition, I'm breaking from sticking purely to sharing pet concepts and tossing up another one of our mounts! Thanks everyone in the #BringBackProjectDragon tag- it's been great to see love for the project 💜"
"When thinking "how can we skin the mount designs to get the maximum amount of variety without obvious reuse?", It's harder to hide your tracks on something with a more unique movement signature. I took that as a challenge and tried to make sure we kept it!"
"The last major skin on the Landta Ray mount skeleton was the Bramble Skimmer! Ancient tech from a forgotten civilization. I reckon you can feel my Atlantis and Shadow Of The Colossus influences 😅 #ProjectDragon."
"In a lot of ways we were creating the world and our new IP one design at a time- there was so much exciting room to pitch, work closely with our narrative team, and establish visuals like this ancient tech mount that would give us loads of room to expand down the line."
Trying to keep up the pace so this doesn’t stretch for months 😅
GOLITH! A curious living geode!
Frubble- a floating oddball frog bubble who loves yellow flowers!
Cottontail- based on an adorable concept from @Leehez_00
Cave Scoveler- digging a tunnel? he wants to help!
"The Moondrake! We love crows in this household, and any chance to work a crow inspired fantasy creature into a project is a chance I'm going to take. Moondrakes were a nocturnal pet and resident of the spooky forest biome!
"he was originally inspired by some little loosely painted guys in what I *think* was an @chan_mydia painting of a witch's tower. I spent a little after-hours time tidying it up without a solid spot to slot it into the game- but once pets rolled around it was TIME."
"Everhaven had two classes of little guys in the game- 1X1 voxel Pets that you befriend with a snack, and smaller ambient critters you could scoop up w/ a bug net! As the underground zones of the game expanded in scope- we realized we needed more subterranean fauna of both sorts!"
"As we expanded on the pets and ambient critters for each biome of the game, we tried to establish visual themes that connected them to the region. Underground was easy- they each needed some glowing element, aaand...I may have overdone it on mushrooms."
"we ALSO had a small grouping of elemental spirits, who were drawn to music! You couldn't capture these little friends, but they would drop spirit materials used in making special magical props and devices ✨"
"Differentiating between pets, ambient critters, and spirits for the player was a tricky balance and I'm not sure we ever got it nailed down. We had so many designs and ideas, it was hard to confine ourselves to narrow visual lanes."
"As we expanded on the pets and ambient critters for each biome of the game, we tried to establish visual themes that connected them to the region. Underground was easy- they each needed some glowing element, aaand...I may have overdone it on mushrooms."
"we ALSO had a small grouping of elemental spirits, who were drawn to music! You couldn't capture these little friends, but they would drop spirit materials used in making special magical props and devices ✨"
"Differentiating between pets, ambient critters, and spirits for the player was a tricky balance and I'm not sure we ever got it nailed down. We had so many designs and ideas, it was hard to confine ourselves to narrow visual lanes."
"THE AUTO-KNIGHT! probably one of my favorite concepts on the project. As we experimented with different mount archetypes, I knew I wanted to find some magitech mech. Once I hit on the sebulba body plan and little flourishes of heraldry, I knew I was on to something #ProjectDragon."
"Occasionally dialing things back to create balanced, but simple little guys could feel a touch limiting. When that happened, I could shift over and work on a mount design where we could get much more visually complex and layered."
"Ever since Nico stacked three rats on top of each other on top of a barrel, in crash 4 – I’ve been wanting to do another design that is three somethings in a trenchcoat. Presenting: a snowman, but all the snowballs are alive! 😅."
"Pet design was a chance to take that same worldbuilding ethos and reduce it down to it simplest components. Each weird little guy taught us more about the kind of magic and whimsy that was the right fit for Everhaven! For me, it was a deeply instinctive design sandbox."
"To match the doggish energy of the Puppogrif, I pitched the more feline/vulpine Snowpaw concept for the snowiest mountain peak regions of Project Dragon. It was important to me that some pets exude “cooler than you” energy."
"Sometimes you design a character for a particular demographic, or a gameplay need etc. But SOMETIMES you design something just for you. The Storm Frae was just for me. A mercurial lil owl gremlin with raccoon hands and lightning for whiskers who only comes out when it rains 🖤
"Anybody else have a weird dream last night? Just me? ANYWAYS- another day, another fun little fellow from Project Dragon. The Oretoise started out before we had a pet system, as an idea for a creature-based source of surprise and delight for players mining resources."
"The idea emerged from an earlier brainstorm, searching for ways to make gathering- logging and mining especially, more varied and full of life"
"ǝɯɐu ɹnoʎ sʍouʞ ʇı 'ǝɔuǝlıs ʇsoɯʇn ɟo ǝɔıoʌ ǝɥʇ ɥʇıʍ sʞɐǝds ʇI. sǝoɓ ʇı ǝɹǝɥʍ ʍouʞ ǝuou 'sǝɯoɔ ʎuuɐɔun ǝɥʇ ǝɔuǝɥʍ uǝǝs ǝʌɐɥ ǝuou"
"And each design builds more trust with the team- as you knock out the cats and puppies, you build enough good will to try a “what if a faceless unspeaking eldritch being made a face for itself with its long fingers like that one scene in Labyrinth?” And that’s the good stuff!"
"Had an idea knocking around my head and doodled it quickly on a whim- it turned into one of my favorite designs of the whole project: the False Gnome!"
"And visual surprise in character design is one of my absolute favorite things *of all time!* I’ll never forget moments like the shock of No-Face’s true mouth in Spirited Away. Surprise can be such a powerful design tool- in big narrative ways, but also in small playful touches"
"Other times your AD tells you “I know it’s not especially inventive, but I think we need a horse” and you ask “can it be made of flowers and leaves?” And he says “yes” and then you draw the ponyest plant pony you’ve ever pony’d and lowkey base it on the horse from harvest moon 😅"
And some designs are just meant to be less “thinky”- I always have to find a way in for myself to keep things interesting- but there’s nothing wrong with “I bet I can draw a horse so cute you can’t even stand it” 😅 Familiarity creates warmth, and makes surprises more special."
"Occasionally dialing things back to create balanced, but simple little guys could feel a touch limiting. When that happened, I could shift over and work on a mount design where we could get much more visually complex and layered."
"Ever since Nico stacked three rats on top of each other on top of a barrel, in crash 4 – I’ve been wanting to do another design that is three somethings in a trenchcoat. Presenting: a snowman, but all the snowballs are alive! 😅."
"Pet design was a chance to take that same worldbuilding ethos and reduce it down to it simplest components. Each weird little guy taught us more about the kind of magic and whimsy that was the right fit for Everhaven! For me, it was a deeply instinctive design sandbox."
"To match the doggish energy of the Puppogrif, I pitched the more feline/vulpine Snowpaw concept for the snowiest mountain peak regions of Project Dragon. It was important to me that some pets exude “cooler than you” energy."
"Sometimes you design a character for a particular demographic, or a gameplay need etc. But SOMETIMES you design something just for you. The Storm Frae was just for me. A mercurial lil owl gremlin with raccoon hands and lightning for whiskers who only comes out when it rains 🖤
"Anybody else have a weird dream last night? Just me? ANYWAYS- another day, another fun little fellow from Project Dragon. The Oretoise started out before we had a pet system, as an idea for a creature-based source of surprise and delight for players mining resources."
"The idea emerged from an earlier brainstorm, searching for ways to make gathering- logging and mining especially, more varied and full of life"
"ǝɯɐu ɹnoʎ sʍouʞ ʇı 'ǝɔuǝlıs ʇsoɯʇn ɟo ǝɔıoʌ ǝɥʇ ɥʇıʍ sʞɐǝds ʇI. sǝoɓ ʇı ǝɹǝɥʍ ʍouʞ ǝuou 'sǝɯoɔ ʎuuɐɔun ǝɥʇ ǝɔuǝɥʍ uǝǝs ǝʌɐɥ ǝuou"
"And each design builds more trust with the team- as you knock out the cats and puppies, you build enough good will to try a “what if a faceless unspeaking eldritch being made a face for itself with its long fingers like that one scene in Labyrinth?” And that’s the good stuff!"
"Had an idea knocking around my head and doodled it quickly on a whim- it turned into one of my favorite designs of the whole project: the False Gnome!"
"And visual surprise in character design is one of my absolute favorite things *of all time!* I’ll never forget moments like the shock of No-Face’s true mouth in Spirited Away. Surprise can be such a powerful design tool- in big narrative ways, but also in small playful touches"
"Other times your AD tells you “I know it’s not especially inventive, but I think we need a horse” and you ask “can it be made of flowers and leaves?” And he says “yes” and then you draw the ponyest plant pony you’ve ever pony’d and lowkey base it on the horse from harvest moon 😅"
And some designs are just meant to be less “thinky”- I always have to find a way in for myself to keep things interesting- but there’s nothing wrong with “I bet I can draw a horse so cute you can’t even stand it” 😅 Familiarity creates warmth, and makes surprises more special."
"One of our incredible tech artists, Mark Eaton, came up w surprising innovative ways to afford large swarms of simple creatures- which sparked some excitement on how we might leverage that for mounts! An origami swarm of mushroom-rays, or a landslide of stone spirits?"
"There isn’t often time in games to set up a mystery, a drumroll, and a big satisfying reveal. Things happen at the speed of a keystroke, so I often feel the best sorts of surprise are the details that reward scrutiny after hours of play- folded mushroom rays, pinoceros carts"
"Another massive category of work in Project Dragon that needed plenty of concepts was: outfits! Near the end of the project we felt the character creator needed some key options right off the bat that felt expressive of the range of playstyles/fantasies we anticipated ✨"
"Early on, as we talked about the world of Everhaven, one of the rich veins for concept exploration was imagining our roster of NPCs. It was a great way to do bite sized worldbuilding by implication and start conversations! Some early riffs- my AD agreed: Ludo was special"
"Night has fallen, which means it’s prime time for the Starwhal! I’ve been obsessed with night and star-specific ideas ever since realizing I could wish on stars in Animal Crossing- it was such a beautiful touch, I wanted to find a way for Project Dragon to pay homage."
"Time for more pets! We’re almost done with the set I designed for launch. Hidden mouths, mushroom camouflage, plushie potential- whatever the way in, i always tried to make sure the designs had hooks"
"Dragon proved to us as a team- it matters *how* you think. Not just that you draw well, or that the ideas are “cool”, but how they fit together as part of a whole. How they create an experience for a player- a slow noticing over time of all the layering & intent you baked in"
"What better way to close out the collection of pets for Project Dragon than with our most draconic little bud? The Thicket Wyrm- a snappy, firebreathing pet from our spooky forest biome."
"SO: that's the full set of pets I'd concepted for launch, but the best part was the TREATS. We planned special recipes that corresponded to each pet- the only way to tame them was to discover and bake their favorite treat Designing pets AND matching fantasy confections? pure joy"
"I didn't quite get through every single pet treat before the cancellation, but almost! And the research was mouthwatering
I had never had a dedicated stretch to actually paint food before- so it was a great learning experience to boot"
"You may have seen him in the background of an image or two before now- but our 5th of 5 Inner Lands heroes was Zent! A shy gaffling kid surrounded by animal friends, his quests unlocked the pet system and critter capture and he was...*just a little guy*, you know?"
"We planned to tell the story of Zent, the valekin, the great spirit, and his omnipresent crowd of little animal friends- through the medium of handpainted rough hewn puppetry! It was delightful taking a break from my usual art style to pretend to be Zent for a bit."
"Wanna see some critters? NO? TOO BAD. We had ambients the scale of birds, bugs & butterflies to add life to the game world, which you *could* kinda phone in, buuuuut…we went high-effort and expanded the bestiary. Seagull that’s a dragon up close! Sparrow gryphon! Strawberry bee!"
"FISH.
I couldn’t tell you why I like drawing fish so much more than other kinds of animal, but there were far too few fish to design for Project Dragon if you ask me! Fishing game set in a fantasy world is one of the bucket list projects I need to get to some day."
"This coming week we'll dive into ENEMY DESIGN! We wanted baddies that preserve the cosy vibe of our pastoral starting zone full of cooking, crafting & building. What better low stakes antagonist than ants to ruin your picnics & termites to gnaw at your woodwork? Meet the BUGLINS!"
"They leapt off an early sheet of enemy ideas, meditating on cosy vibes. We didn't want to evoke an ominous threat, but needed something squishable & nasty nevertheless. Nothing more classic than starter zone goblins, so bugs + goblins became Buglins! and we were off to the races-"
"On the theme of enemies & small touches- props are a sandbox for implied storytelling. For the Buglins we wanted to demonstrate a ruthless willingness to recycle parts of their own bodies in their tools. I was especially excited about using bites and termite tunnels as a motif."
"A rising tide really does lift all boats on a team like Project Dragon’s, when every day you watch @orb_3d pour his whole attention into making the perfect boulder, or @AllardJulien revel in the craftsmanship of a worn wooden fence. All that careful craftsmanship snowballs."
"A hivesworth of Buglin designs!
"With the basic red ant melee Buglin design locked, I started iterating on different types of enemy engagement- ranged pheromone casters with living projectiles, lancing orchid mantis pondskimmers, burrowing boulder backed crabthings-"
"“what about some flying ones? Maybe stick wings on the normal ones?” WELL we could do that, that would be sane. OR I could launch into a multi-sheet exploration, to expand on the definition of what a Buglin could be, based on all kinds of insects I like, while I watch nature docs."
"More fliers for Project Dragon!! Icky mosquitos and earwigs and horseflies and dung beetles and-
BUGS.
I like drawing bugs.
Buglin design is kinda like…designing crustaceans that are also nasty little monsters and also mechs? Total drawing comfort food."
"Been excited to share this one- The Death’s Head Megabuglin!! Trying to push scale and find an appealing design for a mini boss encounter and “rhino beetle centaur monster with orca coloration” just clicked."
"Stick bugs --> whole tree bugs!!
Thinking of the buglins as filling the role of Bokoblins, I wanted to try and pitch a larger encounter like a Moblin…and I figure I get at least ONE hammerhead inspired monster per project right? This was the guy"
"Long after the sun sets and the night begins to deepen, the Mothlins come out..."
"More monsters! Once the buglins were sorted, we started to ideate on monsters with crafting in mind first! The Yeti and the thistlehound were designed with “they drop fur, to make fur based recipes!” In mind"
"This was a new design process for me! Since we were a voxel-based game like minecraft, I started by pitching a variety of fantasy block materials to build with, then each one got a sheet with loose monster sketches and ideas for what the material could unlock."
"One of the best examples: Slimes! For me, they're a must. Nothing evokes the charm and familiarity of favorite childhood rpgs better- and the idea of harvesting slime material to build slime furniture? slime bricks to create slime castles? perfection!"
"I think this is the last of our monsters! Based on a drawing by the excellent @NicolaSaviori , I got to tweak this little weirdo into the final design of the Roklops and its various alternate versions! I liked the idea of combining the eye and mouth into a single surprise."
"MORE nasty fellows from Project Dragon, based on materials we'd like to harvest and craft with. How's about wingaling snake with leafy scales?"
" Pirate day! In our rogues gallery of baddies we had some blue/pink goblin pirates to fight- but our excellent narrative lead Alexander Newcombe led us into an exploration that got us away from "they are inherently evil" and into "their ranks are diverse, evil is a choice"
"Ultimately, all our different enemy ideas had to fall in line with the scope & genre of the game. The whole team really loved these "stitchling" designs, in the service of a mad weaver envisioned as a potential "big bad", but cosiness was more important."
"We planned to tell the story of Zent, the valekin, the great spirit, and his omnipresent crowd of little animal friends- through the medium of handpainted rough hewn puppetry! It was delightful taking a break from my usual art style to pretend to be Zent for a bit."
"Wanna see some critters? NO? TOO BAD. We had ambients the scale of birds, bugs & butterflies to add life to the game world, which you *could* kinda phone in, buuuuut…we went high-effort and expanded the bestiary. Seagull that’s a dragon up close! Sparrow gryphon! Strawberry bee!"
"FISH.
I couldn’t tell you why I like drawing fish so much more than other kinds of animal, but there were far too few fish to design for Project Dragon if you ask me! Fishing game set in a fantasy world is one of the bucket list projects I need to get to some day."
"This coming week we'll dive into ENEMY DESIGN! We wanted baddies that preserve the cosy vibe of our pastoral starting zone full of cooking, crafting & building. What better low stakes antagonist than ants to ruin your picnics & termites to gnaw at your woodwork? Meet the BUGLINS!"
"They leapt off an early sheet of enemy ideas, meditating on cosy vibes. We didn't want to evoke an ominous threat, but needed something squishable & nasty nevertheless. Nothing more classic than starter zone goblins, so bugs + goblins became Buglins! and we were off to the races-"
"On the theme of enemies & small touches- props are a sandbox for implied storytelling. For the Buglins we wanted to demonstrate a ruthless willingness to recycle parts of their own bodies in their tools. I was especially excited about using bites and termite tunnels as a motif."
"A rising tide really does lift all boats on a team like Project Dragon’s, when every day you watch @orb_3d pour his whole attention into making the perfect boulder, or @AllardJulien revel in the craftsmanship of a worn wooden fence. All that careful craftsmanship snowballs."
"A hivesworth of Buglin designs!
"With the basic red ant melee Buglin design locked, I started iterating on different types of enemy engagement- ranged pheromone casters with living projectiles, lancing orchid mantis pondskimmers, burrowing boulder backed crabthings-"
"“what about some flying ones? Maybe stick wings on the normal ones?” WELL we could do that, that would be sane. OR I could launch into a multi-sheet exploration, to expand on the definition of what a Buglin could be, based on all kinds of insects I like, while I watch nature docs."
"More fliers for Project Dragon!! Icky mosquitos and earwigs and horseflies and dung beetles and-
BUGS.
I like drawing bugs.
Buglin design is kinda like…designing crustaceans that are also nasty little monsters and also mechs? Total drawing comfort food."
"Been excited to share this one- The Death’s Head Megabuglin!! Trying to push scale and find an appealing design for a mini boss encounter and “rhino beetle centaur monster with orca coloration” just clicked."
"Stick bugs --> whole tree bugs!!
Thinking of the buglins as filling the role of Bokoblins, I wanted to try and pitch a larger encounter like a Moblin…and I figure I get at least ONE hammerhead inspired monster per project right? This was the guy"
"Long after the sun sets and the night begins to deepen, the Mothlins come out..."
"More monsters! Once the buglins were sorted, we started to ideate on monsters with crafting in mind first! The Yeti and the thistlehound were designed with “they drop fur, to make fur based recipes!” In mind"
"This was a new design process for me! Since we were a voxel-based game like minecraft, I started by pitching a variety of fantasy block materials to build with, then each one got a sheet with loose monster sketches and ideas for what the material could unlock."
"One of the best examples: Slimes! For me, they're a must. Nothing evokes the charm and familiarity of favorite childhood rpgs better- and the idea of harvesting slime material to build slime furniture? slime bricks to create slime castles? perfection!"
"I think this is the last of our monsters! Based on a drawing by the excellent @NicolaSaviori , I got to tweak this little weirdo into the final design of the Roklops and its various alternate versions! I liked the idea of combining the eye and mouth into a single surprise."
"MORE nasty fellows from Project Dragon, based on materials we'd like to harvest and craft with. How's about wingaling snake with leafy scales?"
" Pirate day! In our rogues gallery of baddies we had some blue/pink goblin pirates to fight- but our excellent narrative lead Alexander Newcombe led us into an exploration that got us away from "they are inherently evil" and into "their ranks are diverse, evil is a choice"
"Ultimately, all our different enemy ideas had to fall in line with the scope & genre of the game. The whole team really loved these "stitchling" designs, in the service of a mad weaver envisioned as a potential "big bad", but cosiness was more important."
"DRILLHORN WHALEWORM
say hello to the Delver- I thought it would be neat, as you’re tunnelling, to come across great glassed tubes and distant rumbles that set up an eventual reveal of the great old miner: a massive cryptid whale worm, rumored but rarely seen ✨"
"One of the wonderful parts of working on Project Dragon, was the collaborative spirit of the team- we would go on hunts for "dragon sauce" (novel ideas with distinctive flavor to inspire new features), and I got the chance to pitch things like an archaeology system!"
"Some Project Dragon thoughts about ways to make logging in the forest more playful and surprising! We knew we'd have the player sinking loads of time into chopping trees- how much variety and surprise could we bake into that experience? Could the standard action in the genre formula have greater depth and delight?"
"NPC ideation! We were trying as a team to find ideas to help us all get a sense of the feel of the world & it's denizens- digging and building, befriending animals, looking for a broad appeal with a little "dragon sauce" etc. Before we had a writer, we even wrote our own briefs-"
"As we explored the world, at various phases of the project we would visit and revisit the roster of NPCs to pitch ideas and help suss out the tone. The Lamont sisters, Lyra and Trynn were relatively early ideas that helped establish the feel."
"Early on, we had scraps of ideas- our creative lead Hunter Howe took a stab at writing up some NPC briefs, and we launched explorations off of those. Two of my favorites from that era of Project Dragon were Primrose and Valdarian- scientists with very different methodologies="
"Not the most glamorous part of the process, but one I specifically asked to explore- starter outfits & the things NPCs wear that fade into the background of the worldbuilding. I feel strongly that if you don't put love into those little details, the rest will fall flat."
-the simplest background details are tended to thoughtfully. It's like Dash says in the Incredibles- if "everyone's special" that's just another way of saying "no one is". BUT even the vanilla aspects of a game can be elevated- call it *french vanilla*
"keeping it simple- the "Project Dragon" code name kept me wanting to find ways to inject dragons wherever we could. Pet taming came up and...I took a swing! I still like these little guys, and the fish-faced fantasy fire extinguisher 😅"
"more ideas to flesh out the cooking space within crafting- I wanted to expand on kitchen knives, ladles, cheeses etc with the same depth and lore we normally give to weapons"
"Probably one of my favorite sets of ideas from the whole project- cheeses, ladles, and kitchen knives with just a touch of fantasy rpg sauce (drawn long before dungeon meshi hit the feed fwiw lol)
"I got VERY excited about pitching ideas for the cooking side of crafting in our fantasy world."
"For a long time now, I've been obsessed with roadside farm stands...I think they're so charming, and early on, I wanted to pitch the idea that you could make and run your own as part of the game."
"Kinda petered out on posting Project Dragon art from the archives- mostly because the "it's really cancelled and gone" depression hit more completely. But the work is worth sharing- so let's wrap it up with a bang! Some early npc/playable race explorations"
"There was a moment when we were looking ahead to planning new biomes & playable races more seriously. Our explorations into the Desert (Badlands) biome of Project Dragon led to some exciting worlbuilding visdev about the cultures that live there- like the subterranean Dusklings."
say hello to the Delver- I thought it would be neat, as you’re tunnelling, to come across great glassed tubes and distant rumbles that set up an eventual reveal of the great old miner: a massive cryptid whale worm, rumored but rarely seen ✨"
"One of the wonderful parts of working on Project Dragon, was the collaborative spirit of the team- we would go on hunts for "dragon sauce" (novel ideas with distinctive flavor to inspire new features), and I got the chance to pitch things like an archaeology system!"
"Some Project Dragon thoughts about ways to make logging in the forest more playful and surprising! We knew we'd have the player sinking loads of time into chopping trees- how much variety and surprise could we bake into that experience? Could the standard action in the genre formula have greater depth and delight?"
"NPC ideation! We were trying as a team to find ideas to help us all get a sense of the feel of the world & it's denizens- digging and building, befriending animals, looking for a broad appeal with a little "dragon sauce" etc. Before we had a writer, we even wrote our own briefs-"
"As we explored the world, at various phases of the project we would visit and revisit the roster of NPCs to pitch ideas and help suss out the tone. The Lamont sisters, Lyra and Trynn were relatively early ideas that helped establish the feel."
"Early on, we had scraps of ideas- our creative lead Hunter Howe took a stab at writing up some NPC briefs, and we launched explorations off of those. Two of my favorites from that era of Project Dragon were Primrose and Valdarian- scientists with very different methodologies="
"Not the most glamorous part of the process, but one I specifically asked to explore- starter outfits & the things NPCs wear that fade into the background of the worldbuilding. I feel strongly that if you don't put love into those little details, the rest will fall flat."
-the simplest background details are tended to thoughtfully. It's like Dash says in the Incredibles- if "everyone's special" that's just another way of saying "no one is". BUT even the vanilla aspects of a game can be elevated- call it *french vanilla*
"keeping it simple- the "Project Dragon" code name kept me wanting to find ways to inject dragons wherever we could. Pet taming came up and...I took a swing! I still like these little guys, and the fish-faced fantasy fire extinguisher 😅"
"more ideas to flesh out the cooking space within crafting- I wanted to expand on kitchen knives, ladles, cheeses etc with the same depth and lore we normally give to weapons"
"Probably one of my favorite sets of ideas from the whole project- cheeses, ladles, and kitchen knives with just a touch of fantasy rpg sauce (drawn long before dungeon meshi hit the feed fwiw lol)
"I got VERY excited about pitching ideas for the cooking side of crafting in our fantasy world."
"For a long time now, I've been obsessed with roadside farm stands...I think they're so charming, and early on, I wanted to pitch the idea that you could make and run your own as part of the game."
"Kinda petered out on posting Project Dragon art from the archives- mostly because the "it's really cancelled and gone" depression hit more completely. But the work is worth sharing- so let's wrap it up with a bang! Some early npc/playable race explorations"
"There was a moment when we were looking ahead to planning new biomes & playable races more seriously. Our explorations into the Desert (Badlands) biome of Project Dragon led to some exciting worlbuilding visdev about the cultures that live there- like the subterranean Dusklings."