DEV DIARY #002 !!! - 'The revenge'




Heyo! I'm sugarlesspaints.. (duh) and I'm here in this new Dev Diary to show you Reik's design process! Revolver is also here to comment the story side for this char, but no worries no spoilers, promise :3.
Reik' is the main character in Beyond Friendship, he is just a big zebra boy who is always willing to help people and try the different experiences the world has to show.



For this game we wanted to have a lot of 'size difference' play in game, and people who know my art can agree the best character for this purpose is a zebra. also zebras are bigger than ponies in real life so they fit the role. ;)
-Design-
Zebras are simple, no crazy colors just black and white and this is not bad but for this game we needed to add unique characteristics, first removed the classic Mohawk haircut and added something unique but not too crazy.
For the body he needed to look different than most pony males (and eye catching for pony females) so i designed a cartoon-ish concept first and then "fanart" my own sketch to fit my style.
He looks nice but needs to look 'young and cool' so i fixed the haircut and added a modern style outfit. The outfit was kinda tricky because he needed to look simple but i didn't want the generic character with white t-shirt and red shorts, in the end i added this crazy hoodie and gray shorts, oh yeah! But colors are also important, I chose the cyan color because it is one of the colors that represent my art (yes, even before they became popular in 2017) but also because cyan makes him feel 'fresh and friendly', the dark one is more like 'bad boy' somehow in my mind.
Finally I just needed to fix some little details so he looks younger and added some  'fantasy like' details to the clothes.


I need to add that zebras have this striped pattern because they need to 'camouflage' so predators can't identify a single zebra in a herd, this part made me think that maybe at some point he could not standout in a background so i reduced the tone of the stripes.
This is Reik's final render! :)
REVOLVER'S SECTION!!!
Hey guy, it’s Revolver speaking now! I wanted to talk a little bit about the work I’ve been doing on the game, but since I can’t really delve into the programming side without spoiling a bunch of stuff, instead I’ll talk about what it’s like to write Reik’ as a character! 
So, Reik’ is the protagonist in our furry fornication RPG. In my experience, the hardest part of writing a protagonist for a role playing game is deciding how much freedom you want to give to the player. Obviously we’d love to be able to give the player all the freedom to do whatever they wanted, but we’re no Larian Studios. But maybe someday! 
But consider that even in BG3, you aren’t completely free to do as you please. Every character you play as starts the game with a goal, and a pretty urgent one at that. It’s the choices you make to reach that goal that help you define the role that you are playing. So the more choices that we as the developers can offer you, the more chances there are for you to figure out what kind of “hero” you want to be! 
And that’s the mindset that I’m using to create Reik’! At the start of the game, you’ll know Reik’s reasons for coming to Bridlebrook and what his long-term goals are. But you will be the one to decide what kind of person he is, and of course you’ll get to change his name. We want you to step into his great big shoes and really get immersed in the story that Sugar and I are working to tell.  
All of Reik’s value judgments and moral decisions will be made by you as you play. His goals are set in stone, but his methods are yours to control. This will include being able to react differently to sexual situations and control the type of H-content that you see! Does the flirty MILF teacher excite you, or does she creep you out? Will you peek through the hole in the wall to spy on your sexy roommate, or will you do the honorable thing and spackle over it? You get to decide!



AW YEAH!
Thank you for reading, We hope you play and enjoy the preview demo we have prepared for you, you'll be able to play as Reik' and meet some of the characters we have planned for this game, We are sure pony and furry fans will be super happy to play this little part of the world we have created. Thank you again for your patience!