Though they had a concept of the game already finalised, I was asked to create designs for the enemies in the game. I was very excited to do this as I do enjoy creating characters in a 2D format. With the enemies not being real, physical beings, I was free to go crazy. I wanted some designs to be tied in with the underwater scientist facility theme, so I had a look at some enemy designs from other media that had the same sort of concept.
During Chris and Piers campaign in Resident Evil 6, they come across an underwater facility that has artificially made creatures housed within. I was also playing Devil May Cry 5 at the time and really liked the Scissor Demon design that I thought having something similar would be really cool. SCP always has good designs as well; the SCP 096 in particular was a favourite of mine due to its height and skeletal features.
While some of these designs looked cool, I think some of them would have been hard to put into a 3D format – the tentacles one in particular looked quite difficult. The team, however, liked the idea of something following you for the duration of the game like Lisa from P.T. We sorta then got the idea that we should have the main enemy and that following the player around would be her main function. We made the background story for her, and I got to designing her.
“The Girl who lurks” was a little girl who was experimented on in the facility. She’s sickly, and quite angry. Though I gave her long hair, due to time constraints, we had to remove the hair and made her bald instead. This did allow us to give her a scar however, and I think that makes it more obvious that she was experimented on.
These were small sketches I did to show game mechanics. The child drawing I did in case we weren’t sure how to tell her story in documents, but it did go unused.
We decided it would be beneficial for all to contribute to narrative, as then we all agreed on the story and there wouldn’t be any dissention later. We wanted to go a more Outlast/Bloodborne type of story telling where the player isn’t explicably told what is happening, instead they have to pick up documents pertaining to the facility in order to piece the story together. These were my two letters:
Dear Dr Petrov
Subject 78 appears to be adapting well, and while I appreciate what you have accomplished, I must ask that you stop it from interacting with Subject 41 and accessing my area. They have both ruined some of my documents. You should be keeping it leashed, not granting it free roam of the facility. It’s remarkably intelligent, and that’s what worries me. Keep it in its cell, please.
Thank you,
– Dr Semenov
A note, scribed in messy, chicken scratch writing sits on the table.
Let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out
I never wanted this I never wanted this let me out let me out let me out
There’s blood obscuring the words, preventing you from reading further.