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I’m still trying to catch up with the blog posts in the 3D course, and this is the post about the character package for Assignment 3 that I sent to Jonna. (http://moonphanter.wordpress.com/)
 
Character background – Vinda
Name: Vinda
Nickname: Vivi
Gender: Female, but like other young Terragrottians she has an androgyne appearance.
Etnicity: Terragrottian, a humanoid dog/cat race living underground.
Age: 19 years, and a Terragrottian’s life span is very similar to that of a human.
Physical health/attributes/handicaps: Vinda is very physically fit, slender and agile. Her work requires that she travels a lot so it’s important that she has the strength and energy to do so. She is a bit near-sighted since she has lived underground her whole life and works in areas that are small and narrow, but it’s very common among her people. She can see rather well in the dark.
Movement: She has very humanlike movements; she walks and runs on two legs, but is a lot more agile than an ordinary human. She’s a good climber, and is used to crawling and digging. She also knows how to swim and dive.
Appearance/Hygiene: Because there are underground water sources, the Terragrottians have the possibility to wash themselves every now and then, but they don’t do it more than necessarily. Twice a week is the standard, but if they tend to get dirty while working, they wash more often. Vinda works as a crystal collector, which means that she gets to explore the underground world a lot and therefore is exposed to all kinds of dust and dirt.
Favourite food: Vinda likes to be on the move, so she doesn’t eat any “heavy food” and prefers food that she can bring with her during her explorations. Fruit, bread, dried meat and smoked fish are some of her favourites, and she finds them very practical to eat.
Intelligence: She knows a lot about the different crystals and minerals that can be found in the underground tunnels, but also a few things about the different animals and ecosystems. She has a lot easier to learn from experience and studying “out in the field” than having the knowledge being passed on to her orally. She’s slightly above average when it comes to intelligence, but her interest and knowledge of the different underground animals makes her unique, since it doesn’t seem to be that many that share that interest among her people. (At least not in her home village.)
Education: All the children of the Terragrottian people are taught survival in the underground environment and general knowledge about their society and religion from the village elders, and when they’re older they learn their future occupation as apprentices. Other than that knowledge, Vinda has taught herself a lot about the different crystals and the animals that live underground. She also knows a bit more about the underground environment and tunnels than most Terragrottians because of her occupation as a crystal collector.
Environment: The underground world is very dark and cold. The air quality varies, in some tunnels the air is very moist and in others it’s very dry. There aren’t that many light sources in this environment, but there are crystals that glow in the dark which lights up the way in the different tunnels and the villages. The crystal shines the brightest during the morning and mid-day, and fades when it becomes night. These lights are the only day/night indicators that the Terragrottians have, and they believe that their light is controlled by the aboveground gods. In every village there’s a fire that’s constantly burning (a gift from the gods) that’s used for cooking food and for warmth.
Some of the “rooms”/caves in the underground have walls that are covered with glowing minerals, and in the Terragrottian villages it’s common to have such a room as the “holy room” (explained in Religion).
A village is often a bigger cave that’s connected to several small caves, and if there are any doors they’re often made of stone. The same goes for eventual furniture.
The vegetation and animal life is rather sparse in the underground, but areas close to water sources are often more thriving. The animals are mostly bugs, fish and amphibians, and many of them are more or less blind. There aren’t that many big animals, instead most are smaller than the size of a human hand
Religion: Like the other Terragrottians, Vinda believes in the gods that are said to live in the supposed “aboveground” that no one ever has seen or visited. They practice their religion by collecting and sacrificing crystals and other minerals to the “aboveground gods”, which is a daily event in every Terragrottian village.
Every village has a holy room, where there’s an altar where the crystals are placed on by the villagers, and every night the room is closed and locked. A priest stays inside the room to speak to the gods and reads a prayer, begging the gods to satisfy the village’s current needs.
In the morning the doors are opened to the public again, and on the altar the crystals have been replaced with the necessities that the priest asked for, such as: cloth, food, tools, a remedy for a disease…
There are other practices as well, but they are mainly for the priests and unknown to most villagers. When a Terragrottian passes away, a ceremony is held in the holy room by the village priest(s) and the body is placed on the altar. Like with the crystal ceremony, the room is closed when night comes and in the morning the room is opened and the body is gone.
No one really knows what would happen if a village left an altar completely empty during a night, and no one wants to find out. (They don’t want to risk awakening the gods’ wrath.) So every day there’s a certain pressure on the crystal collectors to find at least a few crystals to offer.
Culture: The Terragrottian culture is said to have been created by the aboveground gods some thousand years ago, and that the gods gave them a mission to collect rare crystals. “Collect crystals by day, during the night you will be repaid.” is the message that the gods left the Terragrottians, and it’s the phrase that the village priest chant during the opening of the holy room every morning.
The Terragrottians live in villages, -that usually are several smaller caves that are connected to each other, and often near an underground water source. The families are often not that big, and some families share a cave together. The village elders, who are old Terragrottians who have lived for very long and are very wise, live in their own cave. The priests also live in their own cave, which often is close to the village holy room.
History: Vinda had a peaceful childhood in a small Terragrottian village, and she decided at a young age that she wanted to become a crystal collector (and explorer). It’s one of the more dangerous occupations to have (due to the hazards of exploring the dark tunnels in the underground) and her parents who worked in the village were sceptical to her choice. However, because of the crystals’ importance to the society and religion (with the crystals being sacrificed to the aboveground gods), they’re proud of her work.
She has always worked very hard to serve the village by collecting rare crystals, and has never questioned anything in her life or surroundings. But an unexpected meeting in the underground tunnels makes her doubt some of her beliefs, and she wants to learn the truth.
Income: The Terragrottians doesn’t use money, since they don’t have a need for a buy/sell system. If they have to do any kind of business, they trade, but it’s very uncommon. Every villager gets food for their daily work, and the amount depends on the age of the individual and not the occupation/social status. When it comes to owning things, Terragrottians don’t have that many belongings, except for their tools of their trade. It’s very difficult to craft things since there aren’t that many materials to choose from in the underground, and crafting things from the crystals (which are considered holy) is out of the question.
Source of income/occupation: Vinda works as a crystal collector in her home village. She heads out in the tunnels connected to her home village every morning to explore the tunnels and returns just before the night falls to lay the crystals that she has found on the altar.
Why she chose her occupation: Of all the occupations available for the Terragrottians, she thought that the crystal collecting was the most interesting and adventurous for her. She would have been bored to death if she had to stay in the village and work, so it was really the only solution for her.
Hobbies: She’s very interested in the animal life in the underground, and has a pet axolotl-like creature called Gegga that likes to follow her around. She loves exploring and gets to practice her hobby during work, which is good since she doesn’t have that much spare time at all. (When she’s done with work for the day, the light of the tunnel crystals are usually very weak and it would be difficult to navigate through the tunnels.)
Dislikes: Vinda doesn’t like to sit still for a long time and dislikes it when people criticize her for venturing too far away from the village when she’s out working. She likes trying out new roads in order to find rarer crystals and maybe discover a new tunnel animal, and she wants to have that freedom.
Family: She has a mother and a father that works in her home village and takes care of everyday tasks, such as cooking food, collecting water and taking care of the elderly and the children. They both serve as fire guards to the village’s holy fire as well.
They’re proud of their daughter, but would never have chosen her occupation. They have very seldom been outside of the village, and they don’t share Vinda’s interest for exploration.
Friends: Vinda’s best friend is her pet axolotl-creature Gegga, but she enjoys the company of the other crystal collectors and villagers. She has a close relation to one of the village elders, who used to be a crystal collector when he was younger and that knows a lot about the different crystals and minerals in the tunnels. He gives her tips on how and where to find rare crystals, and if she finds something that she has never seen before, she turns to him.
Procreate: It’s not on her priority list since she wouldn’t be able to work for some time if she had a family of her own. Also, due to the limited resources underground, the procreation of Terragrottians is very controlled and restricted. If a Terragrottian would be born during a period when procreation isn’t allowed, the child (and eventually its parents) is transferred to another village where the limit of villagers hasn’t been met or that has lost one or more members recently.
Inner rhythm: In general she is a pretty calm and down to earth person, but when she gets very excited about something she can become pretty energetic and lively. She likes to plan ahead when it comes to work and things in general, but she gets very impulsive when in stressful situations. It’s very difficult to make her mad or upset, and it rarely ever happens.
Psychology: Vinda is an emotionally stable person and experiences mood swings very seldom, but she would freak out/lose it when standing face to face with any of her fears. How much it would affect her depends on the situation. Either she recovers very fast from it, or it will take some time for her to get back on track.
Fears/Phobias: Her biggest fear is to be unable to move, due to injury or illness (or being trapped). This makes her sensitive to seeing someone being injured, because it reminds her
of her own fragility. She’s also scared of very bright lights and big open areas, because she has never seen anything like those before in the underground. Uncertainty is also something that she doesn’t like at all, and makes her nervous.
Her main goal/ambition in life: She loves to explore and discover, so her goal is mainly to find new things and learn about as much as she can. All the Terragrottians also have their duty to serve the aboveground gods through their occupation, and Vinda works her hardest to find rare crystals to sacrifice to the gods.
When she begins to doubt her beliefs after a fateful meeting, one of her goals becomes to find out the truth about her surroundings and society.
Her biggest secret and why: She met one of the aboveground gods once when she was out exploring for crystals. It was a creature cloaked in thick cloth, with a hood that obscured the face, but she saw that it had green glowing eyes. It ran away when it noticed her presence, but accidentally dropped a glowing crystal piece with the symbol of the aboveground gods on it. (Which Vinda picked up.)
Does anyone know this secret? Who? Why?: She told one of her village elders, – a person that she trusts a lot, and showed the crystal piece. The elder told her that she should be grateful for the encounter, and that the piece surely was a gift from the gods which she should protect and always bring with her. The piece seems to be emitting some kind of light even during the night (when the underground crystals’ light is weak), so the elder believed that the gods wanted Vinda to be able to explore the darker parts of the tunnels (where there aren’t that many crystals lighting up the way during the day) but also during the night.
About the game: The game is about exploring the underground while collecting crystals, and unravelling the mystery of the aboveground and its gods. The more crystals that the player collects and areas that they explore, the more paths are unlocked and added to Vinda’s memory (which shows as a map on the game screen) which makes it easier and faster to further explore the underground. (And also search for openings to the aboveground.)
1 Paragraph of the game world: Vinda hurries down the tunnel, crystals in the rock walls are lighting up her path, but she can’t see that far ahead of her. It’s soon night time, the crystal light in the tunnel is fading, and she needs to get back to the village before the holy room is closed. She knows that the other crystal collectors in the village probably have found enough crystals for the day, but she doesn’t want any kind of punishment for being late. The rustling sound of the crystals in her belt bags and her footsteps echoes in the tunnel. She runs as fast as she can, and soon she hears voices in the distance. The village!
Platform: 3DS
Visual style: Simplified realism, visual example: Starfox Adventures (GCN)
Target audience: 13+ (age 13-30). Gamers who likes adventure games and games that focuses on exploration.
Direct competition: The legend of Zelda: Windwaker (GCN/Wii U), Final Fantasy: Chrystal Chronicles (GCN), SteamWorld Dig (3DS)
Parts:
– Gloves
– Vest
– Turtleneck shirt (no arms)
– Belt
– Belt buckle
– Belt bag (x2)
– Pants
– Shoes/boots
 
About Rebecka Nyström
2013 Graphics
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