Dev Diary: Dead Head Fred

[Tami]

There are two very interesting Dev Diary articles about the design process for Dead Head Fred. Actually, there's three, but I've included the third article about VO Script Writing here on the forum.

Here are the intros to the other two articles, written by Adam Cogan, the lead designer for Dead Head Fred. Each article contains drawings showing the design process, so I hope you'll click through to read the dev diaries in their entirety then come back and share your thoughts.

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image © Vicious Cycle Software

Dead Head Fred - The Beginning
By Adam Cogan

Dead Head Fred is a mature-rated 3rd person action-hybrid game for the PSP. But that’s just your typical back of the box bulletpoint—it just doesn’t cover it. I mean, Fred is a unique experience, and I’m not just saying that because I designed it. Truth be told, I work with a whole team of very passionate designers, engineers, and artists, and all of us played a roll in shaping the game, so I should probably share the credit with them before they show up in my office with torches and pitchforks and get all passionate on my ass. In a bad way. So what exactly do you do in this game? You assume the role of Fred Neuman, undead cyborg private eye. Your enemies killed you and took your head as a trophy, those dirty bastards! Then a mad scientist brought you back to life so you could exact your grizzly revenge and have some bloody satisfaction. Now that you’re back, you go around meeting an assortment of bizarre characters, helping/hurting people, beating the bloody nougat out of your enemies and finally…ripping off their heads! Most importantly, you can put on the heads of your enemies and inherit their powers. What else do you want? Minigames? Well…yes, we also have minigames. Anyway, the game doesn’t fit into one static, restrictive genre. It’s hard to sum it up in a single sentence. continue reading the article...


Getting the Direction
by Adam Cogan

’m Adam Cogan, back again and ready to spill my guts…not because I have an open belly wound (the stitches are still holding), but because I want to tell you more about Dead Head Fred. In the last installment, I wrote about the early genesis of the game, but this time I’ll be talking about the evolution, or rather maturation of DHF, especially our surly, wise-cracking, undead, lovable main character, Fred Neuman.

When we moved into the concept phase of development, we already had some strong ideas about what we wanted Fred to look like. For instance, we knew he had one VERY distinctive characteristic: he’s missing his original head. In its place, we wanted to have a jar filled with some sort of liquid (it’s 8-year old Gin for those of you keeping score), with his brain and eyes floating around inside it. But what did that jar look like? How about the design for the rest of his body? And how sure were we that this concept’s design would actually resonate with gamers? continue reading the article...