Mandrake News

[p]Chris Gardiner - Failbetter's Narrative Director and lead writer on Mandrake - and senior artist Erion Makuo talk about their character design process. [/p][p]Chris: Erion Makuo, we meet again.[/p][p]Erion: Chris Gardiner, my friend in arms![/p][p]Chris: Last time we talked, we discussed your work on the interiors of our characters’ homes. This time I want to talk about your preposterously luscious character designs, and I should warn you I’m going to be embarrassingly gushy about them.[/p][p]Erion: Oh no.[/p][p]Chris: They’re just so thick with detail and personality. See, dear reader:
[/p][p][/p][p]Chris: For goodness’ sake. Look at it. [/p][p]For context: these are the illustrations that appear next to the dialogue window when you're talking to an NPC. Ok, let’s talk about your process first, then dig into some examples. [/p][p]I suppose we start with a written character profile, written by either myself or George Lockett, our other Mandrake writer. It feels to me like you study those profiles very closely?[/p][p]Erion: I try to! I’m looking for anything that will be directly pertinent to the illustration, of course, but it’s always useful to know the character’s full background, and which parts of it could be used as features in the art.[/p][p]Chris: I ask that because it always feels to me like you somehow know these characters better than I do, even when I came up with them. And the more we’ve worked together, the less specific guidance I’ve ended up putting into the art notes in the profile, and the more work I’ve put into their history and personality notes. Because you’ll always come up with some detail about them that is absolutely perfect, but I never could have come up with.[/p][p]Erion: Sometimes those details are prompted by the constraints of the illustration – the way colours might work together, or the space we need to fill. But I always try to make them say something about the character.[/p][p]After I’ve read the profile, I do concepting: I come up with a simple pose for the character, then dress them up in different ways. Usually about half a dozen or so? Their clothes often say a lot about what they do in the village, their social station, how they live, and who they are.
[/p][p][/p][p]Erion: A group of us then discuss which ones work best for the character, and how they fit with the game’s setting. After that, I work up a couple of sketches for the character’s pose in the illustration. [/p][p]Chris: The poses have become a big part of the portraits, I think. You put so much personality into them.[/p][p]Erion: They’re also a good way to show what the character does all day – we can show them working at a spinning wheel, or walking the moors. I just have to be careful not to make them seem too engrossed in what they’re doing, or it looks like they don’t want to talk to the player!
[/p][p][/p][p]Erion: After a pose is agreed, you and I often talk about the symbolism we might use in the image, and then I move to the full illustration.[/p][p]Chris: I’ve said this to you before, but when I see the final illustration, I always find it easier to write the character. You always capture something about them I haven’t been able to put into words, and it’s like meeting them for the first time. [/p][p][/p][p]Chris: Let’s talk about the visual approach you’ve settled on – because in addition to the character, you include other elements in the image: some of them practical, like a tool or environment, and some of them symbolic.[/p][p]Erion: We came to this approach gradually. Early on, I drew Gideon in a pose where he was sitting cross-legged, and we liked it, but it looked like he was levitating. So I added a tree that he was sitting in—[/p][p]Chris: And that looked great.[/p][p]Erion: —so we started doing it more and more, and adding other details that communicated something about the character, like Kenway's herd or Thackery’s machines.[/p][p]Chris: We started talking about the illustrations a bit like tarot cards, where the details suggest a bigger story. And I love that we can include details that just seem like decoration at first, but as the player gets to know the character more, those details are revealed to be clues to their past, or a secret they keep.[/p][p]Shall we talk about some examples? Here’s Thackery: [/p][p][/p][p]Thackery belongs to an order called the Voicers, who keep the last vestiges of a technology called chorophony, which is kind of like radio.[/p][p]Erion: Lead Artist Toby Cook had already done the initial design for Thackery, so his appearance and clothing were already established – the eye-piece, the stole (which is a symbol of his faith), the tool-belt…[/p][p]In this illustration I gave him his sitting pose, as if he was working, and added the machinery in the background. That’s his chorophon. Because it’s not something you might expect in a fantasy setting, we wanted to make it a prominent feature when you spoke to him.[/p][p]Also, you’ll notice I added tassels to his cushion.[/p][p]Chris: All hail the queen of tassels.[/p][p]Erion: One small story: after I drew this illustration I ended up flipping it, and a couple of others – because we realised that these illustrations appear to the left of the dialogue bar, so the composition needs to lead the eye to the right. What’s more, the dialogue choices the player will spend their time considering will be down at the bottom-right. That means the player’s eyes will spend most of their time down there. This means that whatever we draw in the bottom right of these illustrations has to be really good.[/p][p]Chris: You can do what you like in the top-left, though. Top-left is the party zone.[/p][p]Erion: Yeah, top-left: pfft, whatever.[/p][p][/p][p]Chris: Let’s talk about Nessa next. Nessa’s our smith, and smiths were sometimes seen as semi-magical. Nessa’s the first person you meet in the village, but she has a secret or two.[/p][p]Erion: This was another character that Toby had done the initial design for. My big changes were the tattoos, which I made blue and redesigned, and adding her tools: the anvil and the hammer. The hammer is meant to be an old one, made of the same materials that our fallen civilisation, the Sophoi, used.[/p][p]Chris: I love that anvil – the fact it’s mounted on a root is such a fantastic image. It suggests there’s more at play here than mundane smithing — a sense, perhaps, that her work is rooted to the earth in some way.[/p][p]Also, I think this is the first illustration that added something entirely new to our lore. In this case, it’s the fact that Nessa’s tattoos are specifically on her left arm – that looked so cool that we incorporated it into her story, but I can’t say how because it’s a big spoiler.[/p][p]Erion: Booooo.[/p][p][/p][p]Erion: This is Eseld. She’s the matriarch of one of the two major families in the village, and a seamstress. My favourite part of this one is the roses. They’re an old emblem of her family history, which she takes a lot of pride in, so I wanted them to feature in her art. [/p][p]Chris: Yes, we’ve tied roses to a very specific bit of the lore: a rival house to the Mandrakes. And Eseld is connected to that — which affects how she sees the player character, of course.[/p][p]Erion: The spinning wheel was such a pain! It’s a big part of her role, and who she is. And at our level of zoom in gameplay we won’t be able to see her working at it close-up, so I wanted to feature it here. But it’s a complex geometric shape, it has to be exactly right, and it was really hard.[/p][p]I also like her pose – the gesture she’s making with the thread and the scissors. It feels powerful, fitting her role as matriarch of the family. It recalls the Fates, and cutting the life-threads of mortals – which isn’t a direct inspiration, but again speaks to that sense of power.[/p][p]Chris: Let’s do Josselin next.[/p][p][/p][p]Chris: I love Josselin. Is she my favourite character? Maybe. But this is an illustration that just blew me away, because it turned out completely differently than I imagined, but drastically better in every way. I understood her so much better after seeing this.[/p][p]Erion: Josselin lives alone and simply in the forest, so her dress reflects that – it’s basically a single long piece of cloth, wound about her and cinched at the waist. And the hem is frayed and tattered from wear – she probably doesn’t have the tools to mend it properly, and because she’s an outsider she can’t go to Eseld to fix it.[/p][p]Chris: Yes, she lives away from the village, and has a more mystical background. The moon is a very important part of her story, hence its presence in the background, and I love how you’ve drawn it – that single simple sliver of white. I love her staff and its bell, too. There’s so much specific lore in this image, which will all pay off when people play the game.[/p][p]Especially the hair, which was entirely your idea, and is outright genius.[/p][p]Erion: If you look carefully at it, you can see that her silver hair is growing out – her newer hair is black. So it’s not aging – something very specific is happening. Which you also probably won’t let me talk about.[/p][p]Chris: You are tragically correct. I am the spoiler police, today.[/p][p]Erion: But that was another decision that actually originated in a visual constraint — I realised I was going to be painting black hair meeting a black shirt, and was worried about the lack of contrast. So I wondered if we could divide her hair colour in two shades, and came up with this idea that fit her story perfectly.[/p][p]Chris: You know things about Josselin that I’ve only told one other person: George, my co-writer. Because it’s stuff that a writer needs to know to get her right, but that if talked about more widely among the team or externally might distract or complicate. Details we want to be implicit in the writing, not explicit. But I told you because I figure you need to know everything I do in order to illustrate her.[/p][p]Erion: I’m also very pleased with the rocks.[/p][p]Chris: Those are great rocks! We should call it there or we’ll start talking excitedly about rocks. Inevitably we’ll end up talking in another blog post at some point – I just want to ask you questions about everything you’ve done. But let’s stop here for now. Farewell, art-comrade.[/p][p]Erion: Godspeed, comrade-at-words.[/p][p]




[/p]

[p][/p][p]Until now, we’ve mostly been working in Fallen London, a setting that substantively takes place in a cave, with little in the way of sunlight, seasons, or real weather. In Mandrake, we’re making a new visual world from scratch, which as you might expect begins with asking questions: what are our visual touchpoints? What are we trying to say about the world? 
[/p][h2]A Grounded World[/h2][p]Mandrake has a fantasy setting, but we want it to feel like a believable, natural space. [/p][p][/p][p]We started with British landscapes. It’s very helpful of them to be as varied as they are, whether it's the Yorkshire Dales, Scottish Highlands or the east coast of Scotland (the entire art team lives in or around Edinburgh, so we've got loads of natural beauty on the doorstep). [/p][p][/p][p]Dollar Glen and Belhaven Bay, Scotland[/p][p]In Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies the camera was so far away, much was left to interpretation in the environment (and the writers could freely invent all sorts of things that we’d never have to draw!). [/p][p]The area the game takes place in this time is smaller and more intimate, but much deeper. We really wanted you to be able to peel back the layers of meaning as you move around in the world, over time. It’s a brand new thing for us to even have a game where you can see the character’s feet on the floor!  Or rabbits darting into burrows, or frogs hopping into ponds. [/p][p]Now we're being much more explicit about the world in the art, there's less room for the writers to freely invent stuff in the text - but more direct collaboration with the artists in finding meaning in things we can see, which then feeds back into the stories. [/p][p][/p][h2]The Chaos of Nature[/h2][p]Nature is relatively controlled closer to Chandley. As you move further away from it, things become more chaotic. Among the wildest places in Mandrake is the Deepwoods. [/p][p][/p][p]Environments in the rural life genre tend to be more tile-based. I often love how these games look, but it's hard to break out of rigidity in that style. We really wanted to capture a gradient as you move from civilization to wilderness, which has benefited a lot from a more painterly, organic style. [/p][p]This is a space where people rarely tread; most people from Chandley will avoid going there and you're warned off going yourself. Things are more familiar and nostalgic when you're closer to Chandley, and as you move further away they become almost alien. We visited the Puzzlewood, a temperate rainforest in the Forest of Dean, and we found useful reference from there for the Deepwoods.[/p][p][/p][p]This is also where people will see a bit more of a Ghibli influence in the world. We are huge Ghibli fans. One of the things that I love most about Ghibli films is the attention to detail in their natural spaces, and the way that they give moments for contemplation in them. You get a few seconds of a little brook or the base of a tree and things growing there. They're some of my favorite bits in those films. In Princess Mononoke for example, the way that these forests are almost like cathedrals is a definite inspiration for us with the Deepwoods.  [/p][h2]Building on the past[/h2][p]We have three main cultures that have left a mark on the landscape in Mandrake. There's the contemporary society of Chandley, the local village; there's old Penhallion, who were the original culture in these lands; and the culture that took over Penhalion, the powerful Sophoi empire - that eventually met its fall. [/p][p][/p][p]One of the things I think that's really cool about the setting is that some of these ruins were mysteries even to the contemporary inhabitants. Even when the Sophoi were the prevailing society, they weren't accessible to the general populace. For the ordinary people of Penhallion, there were these huge monolithic structures on their doorstep that they didn't understand the function of. One of the things that you'll be doing is poking your nose into what the Sophoi structures might mean.[/p][h2]Come rain, shine or shadow[/h2][p]We’re also very excited to have a full range of weather, after 15 years in a cavern! We want you to see how Chandley changes over the course of the year, through the seasons and in different weathers.[/p][p][/p][p]This is quite technical, but we recently finished converting all of our scenes from pure 2D, where all of the sprites exist on a flat plane together, into 3D. Which doesn’t mean we’re suddenly making a fully 3D game, but it does mean we're going to be able to do exciting things with shadows. [/p][p][/p][p]Shadows are an important part of helping the world feel like a real, natural space. They show time of day, and the changing seasons. They have a particular quality in winter, we’ll have tree shadows across a leaf covered path in autumn, and bird shadows from overhead. All of which will bring the world to richer life.[/p][p]
[/p]

[p]The mandrake root has been a staple of folklore and magic for well over a thousand years. Often eerily human in shape, with little arm- and leg-roots sprouting from its 'torso', it was assumed – due to the magical principle of sympathy, whereby a thing is believed to hold power over that which it resembles  – to have various magical properties. The smell of it could drive away demons. It was a popular component of fertility spells. Witches used it in the unguents which gave them the power of flight.
[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It was perilous, too. Not only was it deeply poisonous, but legends said that when a mandrake was pulled from the ground it would scream, and that anyone who heard it would die. Ambitious practitioners suggested a heartless workaround for magicians hoping to get their hands on fresh mandrake: get a dog. Tie the dog to the root. Go a long way away. Call the dog.[/p][p]As perhaps the most famous of magical plants, mandrake was perfect for our needs. (Though it took us a little while to realise that. Originally, 'Mandrake' was just the codename for the game, and when it came time to choose a final name, it was too late – Mandrake had cast its spell!)
[/p][h2]The Mandrake Legacy[/h2][p]The title of the game refers not only to the plant, but to a family. The Mandrakes were a house of the old aristocracy that was thought to have died out a hundred years ago: magnates, gardeners and sorcerers.[/p][p]
As rulers of the lands around Chandley, the Mandrakes had a profound effect on the landscape and society. They built a grand castle on the hill, and grew spell-gardens within its walls. They hunted in the woods, and dug mines into the cliffs and the mountains. They allied with, or feuded with, the other High Houses: Rose and Marigold and Lily. They courted the great Sophoi Republic, who were remaking the world with their own, rather different, approach to horticulture.[/p][p]
Some Mandrakes are remembered fondly, like Morgause Twice-Born, the founder of the dynasty, or Gadifer, who united the houses of Mandrake and Rose. Others, like Lionel the Summerlord, are recalled for their folly. And some – like the trickster, Tomlyn – haunt a hundred horrifying folktales.[/p][p][/p][p]Then,  a century ago, the world changed, and the stars moved, and the practice of horticulture – the foundation of the human world – was forbidden. The simplest act of cultivation became perilous, and the great magical works of those aristocratic families turned on them. In a single day, the power of the Mandrakes was broken. Many died. Some fled. And the lands of Chandley have been without them since.[/p][p][/p][p]Until you arrive.[/p][p][/p][h2]The Framing Situation[/h2][p]You might know us as the studio who made Sunless Skies (and its sister, Sunless Sea). As proud as we are of Sunless Skies and the work we did on it, there's always something we wish we'd done differently, and in this case, it's that we'd done more to ease the player into the setting. [/p][p]
Sunless Skies looked like a space game, but fundamental things like time and gravity (and indeed space itself) didn’t work the way you'd expect. What's more, in our eagerness to let the player loose in the open world, we threw them into the deep end by casting them in the role of an experienced skyfarer. You were playing a character who knew more about the setting than you did, and while we seeded grounding information early in the game, it was always a struggle to make it clear, and to ensure you saw it when it would be most useful. [/p][p]
Mandrake’s setting is again one rich with mystery and oddity – this is a world where horticulture is a perilous magical activity; where a god might roost in your chimney; where fires die at sunset and the night is given over to other, inhuman things. So this time, we wanted a framing situation that helped you get your feet under you early. We also wanted it to have an impact all through play; to make the world respond to your presence.[/p][p][/p][p]We decided that:[/p]

• [p]the main character would be a newcomer to Chandley[/p]
• [p]who would nevertheless have a connection to it[/p]
• [p]and who other characters couldn’t help but have an opinion on[/p]

[p]

[/p][p]At the beginning of the game, you have been summoned to Chandley from a distant land. You have just learned you are the last of the Mandrakes, and only by uncovering their legacy and secrets will you be able to advance your understanding of the horticultural arts. How you respond to this legacy is up to you. Perhaps you’ll embrace your heritage; perhaps you’ll reject it, or ignore it. Perhaps you’ll try to take responsibility for it.[/p][p][/p][p]What's more, it’s impossible for your new neighbours not to have an opinion on the Mandrakes. Though some might see the Mandrakes as romantic vestiges of a lost past, others have been happy to see the back of them, and are not pleased at their return. Some blame the Mandrakes, in their pride and their power, for the world’s upheaval. Some fear the Mandrakes' magic; some are enthralled by it. The situation you're entering is charged, not bland or neutral.[/p][p][/p][p]This, then, is how Mandrake begins. With a mysterious newcomer, the stirring of an ancient legacy, and a community unsure what you mean for their way of life. Best of luck, young Mandrake![/p][p]

[/p]

[p]We're so happy to report that Mandrake has sailed past 50,000 wishlists, and counting. It's wonderful to share our game with you and see your enthusiasm in return! Today, we present a conversation between Erion Makuo, Senior Artist, and Chris Gardiner, Narrative Director, about her work using characters' homes as a vehicle for story and mood.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: Erion! Tell us who you are and what you do! [/p][p]
ERION: Hey! I’m a fantasy illustrator and make art for books, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering. For Mandrake, I paint the character illustrations and some of the environments. It’s my first time working on a video game.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: I find that last bit very difficult to believe, for reasons that will no doubt become clear in this conversation. I wanted to talk to you about your work on characters’ homes in Mandrake – particularly the interiors, because they’ve turned out to be such rich, playful tools for storytelling.[/p][p]In fact, your work is so dense with detail that we should use an example from the game and talk about the specifics. [/p][p]
CHRIS: So this is the home of the Iveys. For context, Rosen Ivey is the village leader and beekeeper, and she lives in this house with her shepherd husband Able; her young son Thomas; her older daughter Kenway; Kenway's betrothed, Coll; and Rosen's elderly mother Metheven.[/p][p]That image is obviously the result of an enormous amount of work. But when “Draw the interior of the Ivey house” lands in your Jira task list, what information have you been given to start work with?[/p][p]
ERION: In this case, Art Director Toby had already done some concept art for the exterior of the house, so I already had a general shape to work with. [/p][p]I also read the profiles for all the characters who live there, so I know the residents and what they use the house for. For the Ivey family, it’s where they are together, which means we need a hearth, a table, and, logically, a kitchen. Rosen and her mother make candles, so they would have a place for that too. [/p][p]We’d also been developing an architectural style for Chandley, which I wanted the home to reflect.[/p][p]
CHRIS: Let’s come back to the architectural style, because I want to ask more about that when we zoom in on some details. Before that, what does the early part of your process look like? How do you get started?[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: Lots of visual reference! I looked at as many pictures of historically-appropriate homes as I could, and Toby had taken a load of reference photos of some on one of his holidays that I used.
[/p][p](An interior from Archeon in the Netherlands)[/p][p]Then I look at the space, at what people would use it for. Where would they store their food? Where would they keep their clothes? Where would they put their shoes? You have to think of it as a real house, and how to make it feel lived in.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: 'Where would they leave their shoes?' is such a great question. It’s practical, but it’s also intimate. Do you ask yourself lots of questions like that?[/p][p]
ERION: Yes – you have to find ways to remove the initial analysis paralysis. A big white space is too much, and you can’t process all the possibilities. Limiting your brief helps. The more limited you are, the more creative you have to become. So I try to limit myself with the characters this home is representing. A practical character might not care for decoration, so you have to find some other way to express who they are.[/p][p]The other thing that questions help do is fill out the negative space. When you’re looking at a picture of an empty room you need a lot to fill it. So I do a lot of… not peoplewatching, as such, but being conscious of my own habits. People tend to do pretty much the same things. They leave their shoes by the door when they come in, to avoid getting mud in the house. In the Ivey house there are five people for every dinner – it’s going to be busy, so they keep the plates on the table for convenience.[/p][p]Similarly, both Able and Kenway are shepherds, and have crooks. They just lean the crooks they’ve been using that day near the door when they come in, but they have extras because a good craftsman has spare tools. And those spare, maybe nicer, crooks are mounted neatly on the wall.[/p][p]Because you’re asking those questions, the details have meaning. There’s something worthwhile for the players to discover, there.[/p][p]I’ve heard voice actors say they ask themselves questions about their character and their life to inform their line delivery, too. [/p][p]
CHRIS: Writers do it, too. It’s interesting how similar our early process sounds! And were there any problems or surprises when you were working on this interior?[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: The initial sketch was much smaller and more confined, but I had to increase the size several times. There’s five characters to represent, and who might be physically present in the space, plus the player needs to be able to navigate it easily. [/p][p]We also iterated a lot on the placement of the structural support. Originally, I drew load-bearing beams through the centre of the house to support all the weight of the roof, but we had to cut them to make pathfinding better and to make the interior read better at a glance.[/p][p]
CHRIS: In the eternal battle between player experience and architectural health and safety, health and safety always loses.[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: In fact, we increased the size of the interior so much we then had to go back and blow up the exterior, too. The exterior is smaller, but we ‘zoom in’ when you go inside. But the difference between inside and outside felt too much, so we had to bring them together a bit.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: Great – let’s talk about some nitty-gritty details, now, and your thinking behind them.
[/p][p]CHRIS: A while ago you mentioned Chandley’s architectural style – are these multicoloured bricks part of that?[/p][p]
ERION: Yes. Chandley is in a land called Penhallion. Older, grander Penhallion architecture is mostly only seen in ruins now. It’s inspired by art nouveau, uses lots of flowing lines, and its buildings had roofs of green metal. The more rustic, more contemporary architecture in Chandley still uses flowing lines, but fewer of them; their roofs use wooden shingles instead of metal, but they still paint them green.[/p][p]My idea is that these multicoloured bricks, which are found in several houses, were salvaged from older, fancier buildings and reused.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: I also like how both forms of Penhallion architecture contrast with the other architectural style in the region, which was imported by a powerful distant culture. That’s all soaring, white marble with copper detailing and water features. Ideally, players will be able to tell which culture and period a building is associated with just by looking at it.
[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: I love Rosen’s candlemaking station. That detail of the candles being these long coils – is that a real thing?[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: Yes, I did visual research for this, and looked at lots of photos of people recreating medieval candlemaking. Those long coils must be convenient for storage, and then you cut individual candles off them.[/p][p]Many candles have additives in them for fragrance, too. It’s hard to show that in the candles themselves at this scale, so I added the drawers full of wisteria, which I decided Rosen adds to the candles. Toby’s original concept art of the exterior of the house featured a patch of wisteria under the eaves. That struck me, so I took it and ran with it in the interior, too.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: I love Metheven’s chair, and all its details. It’s a nice, comfortable rocking chair, it’s got her cane next to it, which she uses to help her rise and sit, and a shawl for the cold. Festooned, I notice, in classic Erion tassles.[/p][p]
ERION: Tassles on everything. Tassles on my grave.[/p][p]Metheven felt like the heart of the house to me, so I wanted her to be in the centre of it, near the hearth. That also kind of put her at the head of the table — not too formally, but she’s the matriarch of the house, and respected.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: That’s a lovely detail; I hadn’t noticed that. Let’s talk about my favourite favourite favourite things, which are the kids’ drawings.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: I love these, because they give a sense of history to the house – both the kids are much older now, but these recall a time when they were little. But also, these aren’t generic images you chose…[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: I was mostly trying to make some empty corners more interesting! And I thought 'kids would definitely paint on something if they had the chance.' [/p][p]It’s always a more interesting design if you make it specific. These weren’t drawn by a generic kid. They were done by a kid who looks after highland cows, and another one whose father was spirited away by night-creatures and is processing the trauma.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: Exactly. I think that players who notice the drawings will initially think "oh, that’s cute" and then as they learn what one of those pictures is and why it was drawn, that’ll change to "oh no, wait it’s actually brutal." I also love the height chart – I think I suggested this one because my wife and I did one for our kids (until our oldest got so tall we could no longer reach the top of his head), and it helped sell that concept of this having been a family home for a long time.[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: My parents did the same with us in our first flat, too!
[/p][p]CHRIS: Lastly, let’s talk about that big, beautiful cookbook in the kitchen. What motivated that?[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: Desperation. I had this big empty space along the window and no idea what to fill it with. So I thought 'massive cookbook'.[/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: That’s funny. Because while character profiles and setting lore feeds into the art, it's just as common for ideas to flow the other way. [/p][p]In this case, when we writers saw that big cookbook we got excited – this is obviously a family that takes its food seriously, that has preserved and honed generations of recipes in a book that’s been passed down over and over again. [/p][p]Then recently, when we were discussing the cooking system we realised we’d need an NPC to act as the key point of information on it – to perhaps sell recipes or advise you on ingredients. And we remembered this gorgeous image of the cookbook. So we gave that role to Able Ivey – we’d intentionally left him a bit more sparse to attach ideas to him as we developed them. And this was perfect. It’ll give him a distinguishing function and a bunch of material for his conversations. All because you drew this big old cookbook.[/p][p][/p][p]ERION: I didn’t know that![/p][p][/p][p]CHRIS: Erion, thank you very much for spending the time to talk about all this with us. I release you now to your inks and your easel.[/p][p][/p][p]As summer descends, many of us will be on leave or discharging childcare responsibilities. As such, we'll see you in September. Take care.
[/p]

[p]Yes, there is technically cannibalism in every other game we've made. But you can't eat people in this one.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We knew it would disappoint some of you, but we didn't expect the outpouring of anguish at not being able to have a friendly nibble on the other characters in Mandrake. However, we are resolute that our time in the cannibalism lands is limited to Fallen London, and that there are other, new, equally distressing things for you to fall for in Mandrake.[/p][p]Now we've cleared that up, perhaps the rest of the FAQ will seem a little mundane! But I hope interesting, as it does include more detail about the game than we were able to show in our brief PC Gaming Show trailer.
[/p][p]These questions are taken from the Failbetter discord. If you'd like to take part in future Q&As or get more moment to moment information about the game, that's the best place to be.
[/p][p](This has been edited to combine responses from multiple people and to simplify the questions. If you’d like to read the complete thing, which contains more silliness, there’s an archive in the #answers channel on said discord.)[/p][p][/p][p]Will there be a crowdfunding campaign for this game, or Early Access? [/p][p]We don't expect to crowdfund Mandrake.  It's already an ambitious game and we think this would push us towards expanding the scope with things like stretch goals.[/p][p]We do plan to release in Early Access, though – and actually, we'd like to run some Steam playtests and put up a demo even before then. It has a lot of non-narrative gameplay, and some of the expected systems are trying stuff that's a bit unusual for the genre. To make the best version of the game we can, we'll be looking to watch people play and gather feedback. Also, it will help us figure out which things we optionally could do beyond what we have firmly planned.
[/p][p]How long has Mandrake been in development, and how much work is still to be done?[/p][p]We've been thinking about Mandrake since around 2020, and began developing it in earnest last year. We don't want to say anything just yet about when we'll be ready to run playtests or enter Early Access – essentially, it will be when the game is ready for them.
[/p][p]Was this ever going to be in the Fallen London universe? What made you decide to try out a new setting?[/p][p]It was always going to be a new setting. In this case, because it was justified by the game concept – a dedicated setting could serve the game better. But also, we were keen to be able to write about and draw things like weather and trees. 
[/p][p]Will it be Steam Deck compatible?[/p][p]Yes, Steam Deck is definitely one of our supported platforms. In fact, it's one of the platforms that we'll be building to during development, because it's a nice way for us to test controller support, cross-platform builds, and so on. No promises about when we'll get the compatibility green tick on Steam, but internally we'll be playing builds on it as soon as we can.
[/p][p]Will we be able to remap controls (including the scroll wheel)?[/p][p]Yep! 
[/p][p]Are there plans for consoles and other stores beyond Steam?[/p][p]We hope to bring Mandrake to multiple consoles once we leave Early Access.  We've been developing it with this in mind, and already have it running (with many caveats) on the Switch, which would be the absolute hardest to support due to its limited specs. No promises yet, though!  We're going to need to do a bunch of profiling and optimisation, among other things.[/p][p]Other stores: our plan is to just be on Steam during Early Access, to make it easier to manage the frequent updates.  For full release, though, we hope to at least have the game on GOG and Epic as well.
[/p][p]Who’s narrating the trailer?[/p][p]The announcement trailer was narrated by Tobias Weatherburn! You can hear more of him in the audio drama Camlann, which is how we found out about him (we asked the producer of Camlann for help finding a Welsh voice for the trailer).[/p][p]Our trailer maker is called Derek Lieu and he made the suggestion to include a voice this time. Conveying a lot of info in just 90 seconds is very much aided by not asking people to read it all. And because a lot of the folklore we're drawing on is Welsh (and Cornish, etc), we thought a Welsh voice would be fitting, and help us stand out in the PC Gaming Show.
[/p][p]Are there any literary or film influences that have especially inspired you in the folk horror area, or have you drawn primarily on historical sources?[/p][p]There are a bunch. Tons and tons of books: anything by Robert MacFarlane, Eleanor Parker’s sublime Winters in the World, Thomas Williams’ Lost Realms, Tom Shippey’s Beowulf and the North Before the Vikings, Sally Crawford’s slim but powerful book Anglo-Saxon England, Michael Pye’s excellent The Edge of the World, William Ian Miller’s Bloodtaking and Peacemakers, Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, Jenny O’Dell’s books How to do Nothing and Saving Time. Plus everything Chris read for his Welsh history degree. Plus loads more – we have read A LOT for this game. Tons and tons of books on folklore.[/p][p]In terms of film and TV: lots of low-stakes, character focused shows. A lot of sitcoms (though it’s not a sitcom game, but sitcoms require strong structure, strong personalities, and strong payoffs), Gilmore Girls, Robin of Sherwood, the Green Knight, and others. 
[/p][p]Why is the player character named Morgan? Is this changeable?[/p][p]Morgan is the default name, but if you like, you can change it. For Mandrake, we try to draw our names from Brythonic languages – think Welsh, Cornish, Breton – and for the player character, wanted one that didn't strongly suggest any particular gender. Also, it has pleasing sorcerous associations via Morgan le Fay of Arthurian romance.
[/p][p]Will there be any customisability to the main character?[/p][p]You'll be able to do some appearance customisation in character creation, and also make some choices about your character's life before the start of the game.
[/p][p]Will there be a system of skill points or other sort of character progression mechanic?[/p][p]There are ways for your character to become more capable as you play, and we’ll probably have more to say about this later! 

Does Mandrake use the narrative scripting language Ink, like you did for Mask of the Rose?[/p][p]The short answer is "yes"! The slightly longer answer is "sort of".[/p][p]In Mask of the Rose, we used Ink to drive a lot of the game mechanics beyond dialogue: because it was a visual novel, with comparatively few non-narrative systems, it made sense to integrate the non-narrative logic into Ink, so that writers could work on everything in the same place. For Mandrake, we're sticking with Ink for narrative scripting but building our non-narrative gameplay systems in Unity and exposing them to writers using different tools. So, whereas Ink was kind of the "host" in Mask, in Mandrake it's more of a "guest" on an equal footing with other systems, if that makes sense.
[/p][p]Do you plan on getting this one localized?[/p][p]We're technically better placed to localise Mandrake than any of our previous games — but of course that statement comes with no promises attached at this point!
[/p][p]Will Mandrake be queer-inclusive?
Chandley is a much, much smaller place than Fallen London so we've taken that as an opportunity to be more specific than the broad, everyone-could-be-pansexual approach that we take in Fallen London games. We have queer characters with deep and rich stories, and can't wait for you to meet them. 
[/p][p]Can you die? If so, will there be a lineage system? [/p][p]It’s not a roguelike, so there's no lineage system. There isn't currently a way to get your own character killed, and if we added one, we'd make sure you knew what you were getting yourself into.
[/p][p]Is there a hard mode?[/p][p]I think we will probably include some harder optional challenges, but you won't need to be amazing at mechanic X to make friends with someone or uncover the main storyline.[/p][p]Given this approach, we don't currently have plans for difficulty settings.  It's more plausible we'd add some setting to address an accessibility consideration that also had the effect of making one part of the game easier.
[/p][p]How much time pressure will there be to get good at the mechanics/achieve goals? [/p][p]You'll be able to go at your own pace, for the most part.  Roughly speaking, how well you play will determine how fast you progress, rather than whether you get to make progress at all.
[/p][p]Is this a game where reflexes are important?[/p][p]There is one gameplay system that makes some demands on reflexes, but again, we don't intend for it to require you to be great at it to progress through the game.
[/p][p]Will there be cooking mechanics?[/p][p]There is a cooking system, yes! You’ll cook for yourself each night, and different meals will carry different buffs. Recipes will be discoverable in the world or passed on by other characters.  As with everything else, story is built in -  these recipes might have been handed down through generations of villagers, predating the curse on horticulture. 
[/p][p]How prominent is farming? [/p][p]Horticulture is important to the plot, and the most important non-narrative gameplay system.  A lot of the story is premised on the whole practitioner of a lost/forbidden art thing, so you would miss out on a lot of stuff if you tried to skip it completely![/p][p]The game is fundamentally a mix of rural life sim gameplay and a more extensive than usual narrative – they're very intertwined, so you'd have to engage with both quite a lot to get the best out of Mandrake.
[/p][p]What size is Hob?[/p][p]Hob is Friend sized.[/p][p][/p][p]Can I pet the wisent?[/p][p]He… he might not like that.
[/p][p]Would the Yolf rather wear a ridiculously big hat or a ridiculously small hat?[/p][p]Alas, we will not be spoiling the big reveal of The Only Story That Matters: What Hat Does the Yolf Prefer? The Yolf will wear whatever hat the Yolf chooses to, and will look magnificent regardless.[/p]