It’s been around a year and a half since former Dragon Age writer David Gaider announced Chorus, a musical-themed game from his new studio, Summerfall. A new update from character artist Benjamin Ee explains how the game has grown and changed in that time, with the blog post going over some of the character’s evolving looks.
The first character looked at is Calliope–in Greek mythology Calliope is known as the “Chief of all Muses,” but in Chorus, she’s a little bit more punk rock. Ee says Calliope has changed a lot in the development process, with early feedback leading to her character and role in the story being revised. Her finalized look is an eclectic modern outfit that came about through “merging goth with rave aesthetics,” as explained by Ee in the blog.
The main character Grace, voiced by Laura Bailey, also received an outfit update. While the bones of her design haven’t changed, the outfit was updated to look more like what a woman would actually wear in 2021.
“Specifically, the low-cut denim and the lengthy elastic shirt she was wearing had been long abandoned in the eyes of women’s fashion,” Ee explained, saying that female developers at the studio had pointed out that Grace was previously pretty out of date.
The last update was done more for functionality than for aesthetic reasons–as development progressed, the team found that the intricate leaf patterning on Persephone’s luxurious silk coat was a challenge to reliably replicate. Rather than just changing the pattern, Ee went back to the drawing board to redesign the coat into a “full silk modern kimono” with more subdued patterning.
Chorus was fully funded on crowdfunding platform Fig, and the development team continues to share updates on the platform. Other posts have shared update on the game’s writing, songwriting, and romances–an important aspect for any game with David Gaider on board.
