Devlog 29 - Designing the Nutcracker Army

art/dev whiteboard

Summary

I have been doing a lot of Nutcracker research and trying to answer a basic problem: how do I make a whole army of them without every enemy looking like the same tall wooden soldier with a different hat?

What changed?

  • Built reference boards from real Nutcracker dolls and started pushing the proportions much further.
  • The current enemy ideas are beginning to separate into three recognizable roles:
    • a basic Nutcracker/chaser
    • Chompers, with a huge mouth and more erratic movement
    • Ferai/Ferraille, which needs to be much shorter, broader, and heavier
  • Redrew the mouths to make the teeth more prominent and added visible red gums. That small change made them much stranger in a way I like.
  • I used the exaggerated mouths and awkward running in Attack on Titan as a reference point for Chompers, translated into Jackstrap's much more cartoony style.
  • Started assembling the characters together in collages to check line weight, color, proportions, and whether they actually look like they belong in the same game.
  • I also started listing future Nutcracker directions: pirates, martial artists, soldiers, fantasy types, animals, aliens, and other variations.

What I'm unsure about?

Ferraille is still too close to the other enemies. The silhouette needs to do more work before I consider the design solved.

Next steps

  • Push Ferraille further toward a short, heavy silhouette.
  • Keep building final sprite sheets for the first enemies.
  • Continue testing attack range, movement, SFX, and basic combat UI.

Useful movement references from this pass: reference 1 and reference 2.