Hi there! My name is Warren Marshall, Art Director on Town Star, back with another in the “Designing” series. I think these sorts of peeks behind the curtain are fun for people who aren’t involved in game development and are curious about how things get created.

This one is interesting in that it’s a lesson in how creativity and inspiration can come from unexpected places. Great! Let’s get started.

Initial Idea

We knew that we wanted to add a tesla coil unit to the game, something that could generate power for the town and do it in a stylish way.

We also decided that we wanted a character to be associated with the highest tier of this new tesla coil because characters are fun!

My initial design was based on the man himself … Nikola Tesla. I was basically reimagining him as a Town Star character. The initial mood board looked like this:

You’re probably imagining him in your mind right now and I know exactly what he looks like … in your mind … it’s weird, but I bet I do!

Unexpected Inspiration

But then one of the newest members of our team said, “Hold up”, and showed us a napkin sketch he was working on for a character whom he described as a distant relative of Tesla, young and interested in the family business!

As soon as we saw these doodles, we knew we were changing direction.

Cute! Fun! These are things I like.

We quickly came up with a name for her, “Nikole”, which just feels right in every way and it was time to start designing her for real.

Locomotion

Before getting to the visuals we did have a question or two to answer. Since a tesla coil isn’t a building, she can’t go inside when she isn’t needed on the playing field. It was quickly decided that she would maybe just sit on her hoverboard and listen to music or something while she waited.

What’s that? Oh right, her hoverboard!

My initial thought for her was to give her a skateboard so she’d be able to get around easily. She’s young, and it seemed fun, but the team felt it was a little low-tech for a girl like this.

Team: “What about a hoverboard?!”
Me: “ … Fine.”

Initial Sketches

Now, I wasn’t about to let a little kid play with a tesla coil — not on my watch — but I was willing to let a teenager do it. So we aged her up some.

The first round of concepts came in and looked great:

But something wasn’t feeling entirely right.

She seemed … too old. The pendulum had swung too far. So I took the ideas from these sketches and frankensteined a new version. Keeping the sass factor high, I moved the age dial a little to the left. I think this strikes a good balance between her being a kid and being an adult.

My initial paint-over feedback looked like this:

The artists took those notes and created a final version of her. As a wise man once said, “Pretty good!”

Wrapping Up

Working on characters like this is always a blast. I love the collaborative process that this team does SO well. Here’s a bonus shot of the object of Nikole’s affections — the Legendary Tesla Coil!

See you next time!

“I hate Royals,” Valentina muttered resentfully, and forwarded the very expensive passcodes she had bought off a first-rate forger. He probably worked for one of the nobles himself. It wasn’t hard to drop an extra code or two onto the end of a package getting approved through, and the money for a mostly-legitimate code made the work worth it. Valentina was no good at that kind of work, or she might retire from smuggling. “Everything is red tape. Alpha Station, am I free to land?”

There was a long delay, but it wasn’t as long as it could have been. Some smugglers didn’t like to shell out for the good codes, but Valentina thought they were worth it. Sure, there were always inspections here and there, but a suspicious code would get attention, and she liked to avoid attention when she could. And even though her ship, The Asterias, held no contraband at the moment, official inspections were always dicey.

“Go ahead, Asterias,” Flight Control said at last. Valentina let out the breath she had been holding and pulled her ship out of the waiting lineup. “Mind the traffic.”

“Emperor’s Vigilance, Flight Control,” Valentina said. These types liked it when people were polite, and a little courtesy was as good as a bribe in the right places. “Good luck.”

Flight Control didn’t answer, but Valentina didn’t honestly expect them to. They had better things to do.

Sovereign Protectorate was glossy in a way that nowhere else in the galaxy could boast. It was where the real money lived, and it all orbited around the immense, shining, Imperial Palace.

It was visible from everywhere in the region. Every surface was polished and chromed. The grand, soaring towers of the Palace were lit with billions of tiny lights until it shone like a star. The air traffic around it caught the lights and glittered until the entire palace looked like it was surrounded by an ever-present cascade of many-colored sparks. Poets, songwriters, actors, and philosophers wrote about the Palace until it almost seemed mythical, like it wasn’t even real.

Valentina spared it a long moment of admiration, as she always did when she came to the Sovereign Protectorate. It wasn’t that she disliked the views, which were honestly unmatched. More, it was that security was tighter here than anywhere else in the galaxy and that meant that it was hard to get on with her work.

Of course, everywhere there was gloss, there was grime beneath, and that was where Valentina did her best work.

Nobody lived in the Protectorate unless they were legitimate, or they were legitimate enough to pass muster.

The Royal Houses all kept residences in the Protectorate, but Royals needed servants and that meant housing for them too. Valentina pulled the Asterias around and landed at an unremarkable, but large, floating villa. There was room for a dozen ships on the landing pad, but only four of the berths were filled, including the one she had just taken. Perfect. Life would be much easier if no one else knew why she was in the region.

“Hey Klara,” she said as she made her way into the villa towards a familiar office. Klara wasn’t a friend, but she and Valentina had worked together for a long while. Valentina might not have taken Nisha’s job if the contact wasn’t Klara. Klara’s involvement meant the job was solid. “Hear you got a bit of this and that for me.”

“Valentina Barbaro,” Klara said. She was a tall, waifish woman who dressed well, but just unfashionably enough to stay unnoticeable. Her jewelry was either expensive or fake, and Valentina couldn’t tell which from the door. “I see Nisha was able to reach you.”

“Got me back to Kepler’s Remnant and everything,” Valentina said and dropped into one of Klara’s comfortable, white leather couches. “He told me there was a fair chunk of money involved, and probably a little more heat than I like.”

“He’s not wrong. Get your boots off my table and walk with me,” Klara said and stood from behind her desk. Valentina followed after her. The hallway was lined in art, towering abstracts twice Valentina’s height on one side and a huge, transparent wall of Duraglass on the other. The view was spectacular. Although Klara’s villa wasn’t as fancy as some, she made the most of what she had. “You’re good, Barbaro. Very good. So here’s the job. I have a bunch of crates, a little something for everyone if you get my drift. I need some of them to go to the Arbeiters Faction, out in Lightspire, and I need the rest to go to The Garrison in Shepherd’s Void.”

“Problem with the usual shipping routes?” Valentina asked, since she preferred to know if there was going to be a problem before it became her problem. “Last I heard, there was still traffic going around.”

“Inspected traffic,” Klara said. She waved out over her incredible view as they left the hall and stepped out on a grand balcony filled with lush greenery, all flowering or with half-grown fruit. Back in Kepler’s Remnant, hydroponic food plants were purely practical. Here in the Sovereign Protectorate, they were grown in proper dirt as a status symbol. Valentina could hardly imagine the expense of it. “I need my crates to get there without being inspected. You’re very good at that.”

“Yeah I am,” Valentina agreed with a grin. “Right. Show me the crates and I’ll get them wherever you need them to go.”

She’s almost here. She may not be the hero you expected, but she’s the one you deserve. Nikole’s Great Great Grandfather may have been ahead of his time with ideas and inventions of wireless electricity in the late 1800s, but Nikole Tesla is right where she belongs: At the shocking edge of a 21st century energy renaissance.

We have been waiting patiently to reveal this incredible video. We have resisted the temptations of the leakers, as well as the pokes and prods of the most enthusiastic members of the team… you know who you are.

Now without further ado, feast your eyes on a quick video as hot as any live wire.

…And now (to your frustration and dismay) we will NOT yet reveal the time and date of the Tesla Coils’ release. Rest assured that they are coming SOON.

Don’t miss the LIVE Town Star Dev Stream —Friday, November 5th at 12pm PT, featuring the following members of the Town Star team…

Director T. Elliot Cannon
Art Director Warren Marshall
Community Lead Carrie Allen
Writer Chris Roberts

It was a quiet night on the streets of Industrial Parkway. The land of abandoned warehouses and archaic factories was only a few short miles away from the bustle of night commuters, taxi cabs, neon signs and shop windows. Here it didn’t smell like the rotting garbage that lined the streets or the sticky summer film that somehow creeped up through the sewers and lined the curb. Instead it reeked with the enchanting aroma of diesel fuel and the memory of assembly lines that hadn’t been running for decades. This was Nikole’s refuge and her sanctuary.

On a one-of-a-kind hoverboard of her own invention, Nikole Tesla took her turns at a reckless and breakneck speed, dodging potholes and blasting EDM on her earbuds as loud as she could stand it. She sometimes wondered why they even bothered to power the street lights in this deserted part of the city anymore. There was never anyone here, and Nikole loved that about Industrial Parkway.

Speeding past the worn down fences and broken windows that she’d seen hundreds of times before, Nikole thought back on the hard day that had preceded this glorious night. It was time to make a difficult decision, but she was ready.

Few people in the world are even aware that the great Nikola Tesla had any direct descendants. Famously quoted as saying things like “I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men,” the inventor was an unlikely candidate for companionship. The idea that he had a lasting secret affair in the early 20th century that resulted in a son was incredibly far-fetched to biographers, historians and scientists. Tesla had claimed that this alleged love affair was actually with a pigeon he was fond of, and his closest friends considered him eccentric enough to believe his story. The mysterious lady had died young, less than a year after childbirth, so Tesla kept her identity a secret even from her own son.

Tesla passed on a great deal of his knowledge of science to his young protege, Nikole’s Great Grandfather. When he died in 1943 at the age of 86, Nikola was all alone. This was because his only son was drafted into World War II in 1940. Nikole’s Great Grandfather spent a bloody five years fighting overseas until the Allies defeated the Nazis in 1945.

Nikole’s Great Grandfather returned home after the war, never surfacing as a descendant of the late inventor. The unknown heir to Tesla’s genius blended into mid-century American life, eventually finding a wife and raising a couple children of his own. In the late 70s, his son Theo had a son named George, who met Nikole’s mother at college and produced the great scientific genius destined to revive and rekindle the name of Tesla and bring something extraordinary to the world.

Nikole’s parents made sure that she understood her roots, all the way back to the Tesla family from Serbia before Nikola Tesla’s immigration to the United States. They educated her with all the secrets that had been passed down from generation to generation, and they filled her head with all the dreams and ambitions of any child of the 21st century. With today’s technology combined with the passed down genius of her ancestors, Nikole had always excelled in school. She graduated from high school at fourteen and was currently attending the Blakeman Institute of Technology, one of the most prestigious schools for inventors in the world. After three years at the Institute, Nikole had become bored and restless, tired of learning and ready to make a difference.

A young man at school named August had been enrolling in Nikole’s classes and becoming especially interested in her studies of electromagnetic engineering. At first Nikole had hoped that the young man fancied her, but earlier today she learned his name and realized the truth. His name was Edison. He was a direct descendant of Thomas Alva Edison, her Great Great Grandfather’s nemesis and the infamous rival who had bested him in the race for hundreds of patents. She was utterly unwilling to sink into a retelling of Nikola’s sad story, and she was out riding tonight to make a fateful decision surrounding the future of her family’s inventions.

Nikola Tesla once said “I don’t care that they stole my idea… I care that they don’t have any of their own.” Perhaps he was a better scientist than Nikole, but she didn’t care. There were still inventions to be made, patents to be claimed and lives to be changed. The Tesla family would still make a mark on the world, and Nikole would make sure of it. She was not looking for a nemesis. She was looking for a purpose, and to find that purpose, she would have to leave the city of her home.

Nikole killed the engines and stepped off the hoverboard, then pulled the noisy headphones from her ears. Standing there under the yellow glow of a streetlight and hearing the night noises of a deserted industrial graveyard after dark, she suddenly felt giddy with excitement and couldn’t contain herself. She raised her arms to the sky and let out a wild and boisterous laugh. She felt powerful like never before. In fact, she could swear that sparks flew freely from her extended hands.

Don’t miss the LIVE Town Star Dev Stream — Tomorrow, November 5th at 12pm PT, featuring the following members of the Town Star team…

Game Director T. Elliot Cannon
Art Director Warren Marshall
Community Lead Carrie Allen
Writer Chris Roberts

Part 1 — KEPLER’S REMNANT

“Look, I owe you, so I came back when I said I never would. Talk fast, if you want me to stick around.”

Valentina Barbaro was not having the best day of her life.

She wasn’t having the worst day of her life either, but frankly, a day would have to be pretty bad to be worse than her worst day. Today, she had a bottle at her elbow that was more expensive than anything she would have bought for herself, and an old friend across the table, asking for a favor.

It was so strange to be back in Kepler’s Remnant. Valentina grew up here, bouncing from base to base and doing minor jobs for minor houses, dodging anyone with any real authority. It was a hard life. Harder when she was young. All the same, there was something comforting about being back on the turf she knew better than almost anywhere. After all, where else could she go for free drinks and easy jobs?

Moon’s Tavern was old and dingy. Half-broken neon flickered on the walls, promising a dozen brews the tavern didn’t carry anymore. The place was dirty and blaster-marked from nightly brawls that broke out whenever the locals got offended. Valentina dodged three fights on her way in the door, and was idly watching a fourth.

“I called you because I got word on a job that needs a lighter touch than the little fish around here can handle,” Nisha said. Nisha wasn’t his real name, of course. He was named after some Emperor or another. Valentina met him back when they were both spacer brats just trying to survive. If anyone else had sent her a comm asking her to come back, she would have refused. But it wasn’t anyone. It was Nisha, and she owed him. “It’s big money, Val.”

“I’ve never been swayed by big money, and you know it,” Valentina told him skeptically. At that moment the fight she had been watching spilled into a queue of patrons waiting for drinks, which in turn added three more willing participants to the mix. Fortunately no one was armed… yet. The bartender was eyeballing them too. Mama Moon poured a mean drink, but she also kept a weighted nightstick and a loaded blaster under the counter for just such an occasion. She didn’t much care if people fought as long as they paid for anything they broke. She had an eye on Valentina, too. Val raised a glass to her. Mama Moon grinned back, her smile crooked from a broken jaw long ago. “What’s the catch?”

Nisha was looking twitchy, which meant the catch was a bad one. That wasn’t always a deal-breaker for her, but Valentina liked to know what she was getting into before she got into it. Here in the booze-scented half-light of a familiar tavern, she was willing to put up with a lot, but she never took a job for the money alone. That was a good way to get into trouble she couldn’t get back out of.

“It’s gonna get attention,” he said at last between chugs from his glass. Valentina topped him off (he was buying after all) and sat back in her chair. “From, well, from pretty much everyone. See, word is, there’s something brewing on a galactic scale, something to do with the Miasma dissipating and all those ancient systems now within reach… All the big houses need to prepare, and we can help, for a hefty price. This run, it’s to get supplies here and there, get them where they’re going, and get out without getting nabbed.”

“So, basically, just like all of my jobs,” Valentina snorted. She was a smuggler, and a good one. The Factions having it out made things more complicated, but when three powerful people (or powerful Factions) didn’t like each other, there was always room for profit. After all, they couldn’t be looking everywhere at once, and they were more interested in the people shooting at them than the ones who weren’t. “Why me?”

“Because I can trust you.”

“No you can’t.”

“Alright, so I can’t,” Nisha admitted and proffered a tablet to her. Valentina took it, but didn’t turn it on. “What I do know is that you’re the type to stay bought, and that’s close enough in my book.”

It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but it would have to do. Valentina wasn’t hurting for work, but she hated to pass up a job when one this lucrative came knocking on her door. It was good for business if people knew she was open to a challenge. It was a point of pride too. She wasn’t about to flinch off a job just because it might get the wrong kind of attention.

“Fine, I’ll take the job,” Valentina gave in with a sigh, and offered her glass to Nisha. He obligingly topped it off and clinked his to it, a spacer’s handshake. “Where am I going first?”

Part 2 — Sovereign Protectorate

Part 3 — Lightspire

Part 4 — Shepherd’s Void