So! Back in December we said we are wanting to be very open about the development of the game – and with that, will come spoilers! The first of which will be in this blog post.
We’ve been making great progress with developing the storyline for Event 2, focusing on first contact, high stakes for each division, and, of course, aliens. The first draft of the plot doc is done, giving us a long time to refine it, get feedback, and create interesting props and smaller tasks for players to interact with.
This blog post contains concept artwork for the aliens you’ll be meeting at the event, and should set the tone for our goals with NPC aliens going forwards…
Design Preview
Meet…. Well, I’m not going to tell you their names yet. That’s for intel transmissions a bit closer to the event!
Meet our potential future cast! We’ll be going forward with one of these alien concepts as the main residents on the next planet you discover.
Becky has created some fantastic concepts for a very alien species for Event 2, which will be produced by Keith over the coming months. We’re really excited to get some bigger custom costumes made, which includes another look at all NPC aliens and factions currently present in the game, as we move away from “a bit of facepaint will do” for everything, and towards a mix of subtle and dramatic alien physreps. We’ll share more previews of those in future blog posts!
We’ll still have plenty of non-masked options available for our volunteer crew (we aren’t expecting you to spend the full weekend in a mask, don’t worry), and are keen to explore different ways to make larp-suitable aliens that feel like aliens and aren’t reliant on lengthy prosthetic applications.
Becky’s also been working on some costume concepts, which may give you some more hints about the event…
If you’d like to see more of Becky’s art, you can follow her on instagram here.
Next Up
With all these designs, any that don’t get used for Event 2 will go into a general pool of concepts for us to draw from in the future.
We’ll begin sourcing costume parts for these new aliens once tickets go on sale in April. If you’ve got any good sources for anything above, do let us know! We are going to try and stretch our budget as far as possible, preferring second-hand and upcycled pieces as we build up our pool of scifi crew kit.
That’s all for this week’s updates; next week, we’ll be sharing a longer blog post focussed more on LARP theory, the tone of the game, and how we’re approaching player success – and failure – in the future.