Linking Ideas like a Golden Necklace

September 13, 2019

Ideas can come from weird places. And they have a way of building one upon another. Such was the case with a humble background extra in Sleuthhounds: Cruise: the jewelry shopkeeper.

The bejewelled jewelry shopkeeper.

Jewelry shops are mainstays aboard cruise ships. Presumably the glint of sunlight off the ocean, looking like a thousand glittering diamonds, subliminally encourages people to buy jewelry. I knew from very early in development that there would be a jewelry shop aboard ship, although I didn’t have anything specifically planned for it at that point.

When I got to developing Act 3 of the game, an opportunity presented itself to incorporate a puzzle sequence wherein Ampson had to procure jewelry for one of the suspects. As a result, it became necessary to add a shopkeeper character as an extra to the game’s cast. She was basically just there to accept payment for the jewelry purchased and had only one or two lines of dialog.

Buying jewelry with the shopkeeper watching (WIP, obviously).

For the design of the shopkeeper, I wanted a character who was really blinged out. It made sense, in the context of the Sleuthhounds world, that the character would just be completely weighed down with jewelry. This sparked an odd notion when I revisited the jewelry shop sometime later.

Recent work on Cruise has been mostly focused on developing side quests in the game. One such side quest involves obtaining a jeweled playing piece for the Dressings of Fruits and Veggies board game, which I’ve written about previously (the game, not the side quest). This allowed for the jewelry shop, and consequently the jewelry shopkeeper, to play double duty in the game.

The jewelry shop contains two display cases. It made sense that the first bit of jewelry Ampson would get would be in one display case and that the jeweled game piece would be in the other. This presented the opportunity to poke fun at how much jewelry the shopkeeper wore. When purchasing the jeweled game piece the shopkeeper asks that the player character – in this case, Ampson again – come around to the side of the shop she’s already facing. The shopkeeper expresses that she’s so weighed down with jewelry that she’s unable to turn to accept payment from the other direction. It was only later that I realized this would save me from having to draw the character facing the other way (a production bonus). For a while at any rate.

Buying jewelry withOUT the shopkeeper watching (more WIP.

This past week I’ve been adding another side quest into the game. This one involves finding a replacement head for a practice medical dummy in Doctor Seymour’s office. There are several places on the ship where such potential heads can be found. One place that was an immediately natural fit was the jewelry shop. A simple model head to display jewelry on.

Even better, because I had established that the shopkeeper couldn’t turn there was already a built in challenge. Homes – for it’s he who has to find the replacement – can’t just walk up and take the jewelry display head because the shopkeeper is watching. And he can’t just ask her to turn away for a moment because she’s so weighed down she’s unable to turn. Out of that simple(?) scenario has sprung a whole little sequence with the goal of turning the shopkeeper away so the display head can be taken. Which, yes, does mean I have to draw different views of the shopkeeper after all.

It’s a weird situation to be sure, but it fits the logic and world of the Sleuthhounds, which is a large part of why I went the comedic/cartoon/semi-parody route instead of with a game set in real world reality. Ultimately, getting to this point with the shopkeeper stemmed from the heavily bejeweled character design. One idea emerging from another, like the golden chain links on a necklace. If chain links, you know, spontaneously emerged from one another.

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