Welcome back to a new edition of Weekly Apart our, lately, not so weekly dev newsletter (apologies, we were really busy bug fixing and couldn't really share new stuff - until now!). In today's post we'll give you an update on how we were able to give the colonists, or prospectors as we like to call them, a healthy dose of much needed personality. But before we dive into the intricacies of moustache design, we want to plug our social media channels, especially our [url=https://discord.gg/M7Cagwx7V5]Discord[/url], where we have begun to live stream our weekly dev meetings (Witchcraft Wednesdays), and [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCusgOmkFv0Sc4j3iAovWWpQ]YouTube[/url] where you can recap said streams [url=https://www.youtube.com/@DawnApart/streams]in full [/url]or check out clips of the hilarity that ensues when we get sidetracked and [url=https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jV-9LxP--4s]talk about TMNT[/url] or [url=https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zCuoujHVgyw]the Upside Down world[/url]. [h3]Character Combos[/h3] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43212903/c4c12809a4c01c384d7f1a510d772cf220455e85.png[/img] Even though eventually your colony will eventually be inhabited by a few hundred fortune hunters, we decided early on that we don't want them to be generic, faceless avatars but to have individual looks. Because the in-game characters are rather small - especially when contrasted with the huge machinery and factory building - and hard to relate to on that scale, we came up with a solution. We created a system that randomly generates faces for the avatars by mixing 8 different head shapes, five different skin tones and 20 hairstyles 4 beard options for a total of 3200 unique character combinations (with the addition of various hair colors that number increases further exponentially). [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43212903/d67971dbc8195112272dd55804a99bf88ef29334.png[/img] [i]This guy (let's call him Hopper) looks like he traded his job as a barista at a coffee shop in Portland for the much more lucrative (and dangerous) gig of extracting Lucrum on Aurora. [/i] [h3]A closer look[/h3] To give them even more personality we have dedicated the lower right corner of the screen to a character viewer (or if you prefer a fancier name, the pioneer modal view) that, with a click on each respective colonist on the map, gives you a more detailed profile of their look along with facial expressions that document their emotional state and personal stats detailing sleeping, eating, health and bathroom habits over the last 12 in-game hours. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43212903/1c4eff08f37a8a834586ef7db47aef072224fc01.png[/img] [i]Leaving your home to colonize a distant planet can be a hair raising experience.[/i] What do you think of our new cast of prospectors and what would be your go-to combination of facial features? Let us know in the comments! In the meantime we'll keep working hard to let you manage your own cast of unique colonists in our very first demo which will launch soon. See you in a few weeks!