[p]In the earliest prototypes of
Senatus, every card showed the same senator.[/p]
- [p]Same face.[/p]
- [p]Same tunic.[/p]
- [p]Same beard.[/p]
[p]It was practical. It worked. But it wasn’t Rome.[/p][p]And
Senatus is not about abstracting the Roman Senate. It’s about confronting it.[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h2]The Placeholder Problem[/h2][p]When you play a card in a debate, you’re not moving an icon: you’re trying to convince a person.[/p][p]Until now, however, every senator looked like a clone from the same
gens. This first iteration has served us to test internally the card game.[/p][p]However, now it's time to give each Senator a proper look.[/p][h2]A Living Senate[/h2][p]From this version onward, every senator is generated procedurally from a pool of combinable elements:[/p]
- [p]Different faces[/p]
- [p]Varied hairstyles[/p]
- [p]Body types[/p]
- [p]Skin tones[/p]
- [p]Hair colors[/p]
- [p]Beards and facial styles[/p]
[p]Each card now represents a distinct individual within the Senate.[/p][p]These are not just cosmetic tweaks. The cumulative effect is what matters: when you look at the board, you no longer see an abstract grid of influence. You see an assembly, a political body: The Senate of Rome.[/p][p]
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[/p][h2]Why This Matters[/h2][p]In a game centered on debate and persuasion, perception is part of the design.[/p][p]This visual variability:[/p]
- [p]Reinforces the feeling that you are negotiating and convencing real individuals.[/p]
- [p]Adds identity and character to the Senate as a whole.[/p]
- [p]Makes each playthrough feel subtly different from the last.[/p]
[p]It may seem like a small change, but it transforms the atmosphere of the game. Politics is not uniform. The Republic was not homogeneous. And now, neither is the Senate.[/p][p][/p][p]That's all for now, see you in the next dev diary, senator![/p][h3]
The Senatus Team[/h3]