Horizons Developer Journal

Doug “Dark Jedi” Shuler has given his first Developer Journal over at Horizons Vault, talking about artwork and race design:

So, when I start a design, I ask myself a number of questions. I make dozens or hundreds of little sketches about the race, testing them in my brain and trying to make sure they’re all equally interesting. When I designed the Saris, for example, some of the easy questions would be ‘how do they walk?’, ‘how do they sleep?’, ‘what colors are they?’. Later, I would consider how they used tools, what types of buildings would they make, and how are their weapons shaped? Finally, I would ask esoteric questions that might not appear in game, but help my understanding of the race, like how is their society structured, are they honorable or deceitful, and how they might deal with trade or religion. These are all important to me, and part of their design.