Hi everyone! I’m back yet again with another lengthy design deep-dive post, this time having to do with Override! It’s been a short while since I’ve discussed anything Override related, and since I’ve been wanting to talk about it and its cast of characters again for quite some time, I settled on the perfect topic: how its main character designs have evolved over the course of two years!

Since I first unveiled Override as a concept to my tumblr (Which you can find linked in the paragraph above), a good few touch-ups have been made to all four protagonists— including a complete redesign of Casey! Check it out!

I find that the differences in design are most prevalent with Casey, though effectively, the remaining three have also had pixel-perfect alterations made to their sprites. I’m also just now realizing that this is the first time my followers are getting to see their default sprites, something I’m very much acquainted to by this point.

Below, you will find not only explanations as to what’s changed for each character’s design, but also their full design timelines (And developmental names!) which includes sprites I made for Casey and Lauren back in 2019! Without further adieu, let’s get into it, because we’re in for a long ride!

As I’ve mentioned in Override’s two year anniversary post, Override was once a completely different concept entirely compared to what it is today, and given this, each member of the chosen four have had quite a rollercoaster ride in just about every aspect of their design, be it their looks, name, or personality.

And who better to start with than Casey?

Casey was originally going to be named either ‘Weston’ or 'Colton’ early on in back when the project was called MOTHER: Into the Unknown, but 'Casey’ was settled to be his final name once I drew him for the first time.

As you can see above, the tried and true Earthbound 'striped shirt and shorts protagonist’ combo in Casey’s design was used to its fullest since day one. At first, I wanted him to have a red shirt with orange stripes, but after noticing this made him look too similar to Lucas, it was changed to a blue shirt with cyan stripes.

Fun fact: Casey’s dull brown hair color and the color scheme of his shirt for a while were in direct reference to one of Lucas’ Smash Bros. alternate palettes, which was where I got the inspiration from (Plus, blue is my favorite color)! He was going to have red shorts as well, but that was much too on the nose.

Casey’s scarf also went through a few color changes! I think the reason it was white in the first design was just for placeholder reasons, though I recall it being red for a little while before I switched into yellow for two reasons: one, the color yellow is associated with both optimism and cowardice (Both being big personality traits of Casey’s), and two… well… this guy.

Lastly, let’s touch on Casey’s most recent design. Because Override is now its own entity separate from the Earthbound continuity, I wanted to opt for a design that was… more of my own, if that makes sense. I ended up giving him a long sleeved light cyan shirt with blue sleeves, referencing his previous design, as well as completely redrawing his hair so that it wouldn’t be too spherical.

Now, how would you react if I told you that Casey’s design timeline has the least number of sprites?

Enter Lauren, who I’ve given the distinction of having the second most changed design since her first version! My original vision of Lauren was to have her be more of a 'girly girl’ type (Look where that ended up lol), and while she had several preliminary names, the only ones I distinctly remember are 'Madison’ and 'Hannah’.

Because I didn’t bring it up in Casey’s section, you might notice that Lauren’s sprite style changes drastically by the third design, opting for a bigger sprite with room for more detail. Early on in, this visual style lined up with Oddity’s quite a bit, and became its own thing soon enough (Plus, Override’s character sprites have four pixel tall eyes. Big difference.).

For like a very brief while, Lauren’s color of choice was a mint green, though that was swapped out for a shade of orange quite fast. I also wanted Lauren to have a bow, kind of like what Paula wears in Earthbound, and I also wanted her to wear a dress… before long, I realized I had just designed another Paula.

So, the dress aspect of the design had to be changed, but I first wanted to see if I could hammer out a good hairstyle for her, which doesn’t come into full effect until the third-to-last sprite. Lauren eventually began to sport her trademark ruby red color, and instantaneously after that change, she switched out the dress for something marginally less lady-like; a t-shirt and overall combo.

By now, Lauren’s 'nine-year-old tyrant’ personality was beginning to take shape, and while her overall design was her final design for a while, I then remembered that Override takes place early on in the year, so it might make a little more sense to have her dress in something warmer (Like how Casey gained a sweater)!

Thus, Lauren was given her standard jacket, as well as keeping the pink shirt aspect of the previous design! I find that Lauren had the smallest amount of changes between the Override reveal post and this one, as all I did were give her the little hood pullies and a hood for her jacket.

And that’s a wrap for Lauren! You know how I said that Lauren had the second most changes to her design since her initial concept? Well, do you want to know who couldn’t keep a consistent design for the live of him for the longest time?

Bradley.

With a whopping eleven different design sprites, it took me an extremely long time to settle on how I wanted Bradley to look, as well as who Bradley is as a character. Named 'Oliver’ originally, his design didn’t start making the rounds until I had started to round out the designs for Casey and Lauren.

Initially, I envisioned Bradley as more of a 'social outcast’ type (Much more so than his present version, funnily), though I also wanted him to be kind of a nerd type who plays video games a lot and does well in class, but I also wanted him to be a 'cool guy’ character who would skateboard everywhere… oh, boy, this wasn’t going to be easy.

Bradley, for a while, wore glasses, as a subtle nod to the glasses Jeff wears in Earthbound: the only difference being that you could actually see Bradley’s eyes. Jeff was a big inspiration for Bradley’s character, too, seeing as both were blonde (At one point), had glasses (At one point, again), wore green (At some point) and didn’t use magic.

It was when I did away with his glasses that his current design began to form. I briefly brought back the hoodie his first design has before giving him a red dress shirt with a black overshirt jacket (Though the hoodie was repurposed for his best friend’s design, who ended up looking a lot more like how I first wanted Bradley to).

I then tested out a different palette for his new outfit by making the overshirt jacket green and trying out a long-sleeved black shirt underneath, and since that design change, Bradley was pretty much finished, save for small changes from then on (Such as his military dog tag necklace).

His current design changes two things from his previous design: one, I finally got his hair how I wanted it to look— noticed best by his bangs and the addition of a cowlick— and two, he now sports an undershirt like this, which I find has a particular 'late 90s/early 2000s’ feel to it.

As for Bradley’s character, it was eventually decided he would be a mix of the personalities I wanted to give him: he’s mostly known as an unassuming and awkward teenager, but also likes skateboarding and playing video games. With perhaps the most design-intensive character out of the way, let’s move on to our last but certainly not least team member…

MacKenzie! Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure MacKenzie was like the second character I began to think of ideas for. In the Into the Unknown days, my basic idea was for her to be the standard 'early 2000s gothic girl’ without going too overboard in terms of the usual dark and complex clothing.

She was named 'Destiny’ at the start, but I then changed her name to 'Kenzie’, as it better fit the era Override takes place in… but then I felt like Kenzie was too feminine of a name for the type of character I was aiming for, so she was promptly renamed to MacKenzie thereafter.

MacKenzie is noteworthy for having her first design line up pretty closely to her current design, though plenty of changes were made in-between. She started out with an extremely basic, placeholder look: a jean jacket, deep red shirt, black pants… boom. MacKenzie. However, for a while, MacKenzie had two things the current MacKenzie does not: a hair bow, which has a crescent moon in the middle, and bright pink wrist sleeve braces.

Most of her early sprites were focused primarily of detailing her first sprite, while experimenting some with color choices. Somewhere down the line, though, a humorous idea came to mind— what if she carried an entire stop sign for a weapon? I had wanted MacKenzie to be more of a masculine type of girl, similar to MOTHER 3’s Kumatora, so it was a perfect addition to her design!

For a little while, the sprite where she first has the stop sign was her current design, before I tried out giving her the black jeans I had initially drawn her with. I liked the design, though I felt that it was a little lacking, like it was missing something… maybe if I gave her different headwear?

Her crescent moon bow was replaced with a black snapback with a purple brim (That’s why MacKenzie is always represented with a purple color, by the way!), and I saturated her jean jacket a bit so it wouldn’t be so flat. She also now wears a black wrist sleeve brace (Though it could also be a Psiometer… up to interpretation!) on one of her arms, as a nice callback to her starting design.

Thus, MacKenzie’s design was complete! … or, so I thought. It was when my good friend @minxxikuo took a huge liking to MacKenzie and began to draw her that I found that I really like how he portrayed her. Knives’ portrayal of MacKenzie featured a shorter hairstyle that juts out to the side a bit, as well as giving her all kind of earrings.

We ended up agreeing that this interpretation was now canon, and the only other addition I made that you can find in her latest sprite— which is an extremely easily missed detail, mind you— is the addition of two little pins to the front of her jean jacket. Oh, also, her stop sign has a dent in it now, implying… previous melee use.

Well, I think that’s about everything! This post ended up being much longer than I expected it to be, but knowing a good few of my followers do like when I get lengthier insights to whatever I make, I’m not sweating it too much! I hope that you’ve enjoyed this deep dive of the Override cast’s designs— these four have come a long way!

Even though it was just last month that I revealed it here on tumblr, two years ago on this very day— August 25th— was the day where Override was first conceived! Back in 2019, Override was immensely different than what it is today; at the time, it wasn’t even called Override, nor did it take place in a universe designed by my own hand per se.

By that, I mean that it originally took place in the Earthbound/MOTHER continuity (PSI powers included!) and, for the longest time, went by the name “MOTHER: Into the Unknown”. It would have been set directly after the events of Earthbound, and still retained its Y2K plot elements… loosely. Like I said, its story back then was a lotdifferent.

Though, more on pre-Override trivia for a future post. I was debating on whether or not I should post something to commemorate the two-year anniversary of Override’s creation… until I realized I still had a battle sprite to show off. So, as a nice continuation to Override’s first actual teaser…

… here’s what happens next!

When it came time to think of a few enemy types for Override, I knew that I wanted an enemy similar to that of the MOTHER series’ Starman, something that could come in a few different forms but ultimately be recognizable regardless of variation. And so, with a few sketches here and there…

I designed the SGN-DRN— the Synergon Drone! The Synergon Drone was created with two specific inspirations; the L'il UFO from Earthbound and a pinch of a Mega Man-esque aesthetic, combined with my usual character design philosophy. The Synergon Drone’s initial design sketch portrayed it to look a lot wider (You can see this version of the design in the original teaser), but was eventually slimmed down a bit.

And spriting the Synergon Drone was no picnic, either. I actually decided to start from scratch at one point when I had already drawn at least 40% of it because I knew that it could look a lot better with enough tweaking, and surprisingly enough, I pulled it off! A whole lot of colors were used in the Synergon Drone’s battle sprite, but that only makes it a lot more visually pleasing!

I also went ahead and not only sprited an overworld sprite for the Synergon Drone, but animated its rotors, too! On its own, this makes for a really solid gif, and I’m impressed with myself that I was able to cram all of its details into a much smaller, size-accurate overworld sprite!

The last thing I’d like to talk about are a few aspects of the battle screen that I sprited, featuring Lauren’s first (hostile) encounter with a piece of Synergon tech. There are a few things that you’ll notice are new in this battle screen compared to the last one, such as what it looks like when you’re laying out your attack strategy as well as an adorable sprite I made of Lauren deep in thought.

It was a whole lot of fun making this new battle screen against a Synergon Drone, though next time when I upload another mockup of an in-game screenshot, it will instead be an overworld scene where I’ll test out my skills in tilesetting. For the time being, I hope you’ve enjoyed the spritework as always!

When a strange aircraft totals itself near the Treverton residence, Casey and Lauren are quick to take it into hiding so that nobody may learn of their discovery. Once Casey is finally allowed a moment alone at bedtime, Lauren sneaks through his patio door and up to his room at his request to inspect their find with him.

At first, there’s no telling what it might be…

… but something deep in Casey’s heart tells him that it shouldn’t be here.

(Check underneath the cut for extensive insight on this piece, including an alternate version of Casey’s room with the lights on!)

What you just saw above may very well be a sprite piece two years in the making. … well, it didn’t actually take two years to sprite this, but there’s quite a history behind this Override screenshot, and if you know anything about me, you can bet that you’re going to hear all about it! With that said, let’s dive into the making of Casey’s bedroom!

To start, I’ve been wanting to make faux screenshots for Override since mid-2020, and one such scene I wanted to give a go at spriting was something involving Casey’s bedroom. At that time, I had a few ideas on what I wanted his humble abodes to look like— blue walls, a desk, a really neat space poster someplace— it was such a cool vision that I had to attempt spriting it all right away!

I didn’t get very far.

Keep in mind that at the time making this first draft, I had only begun practicing my skills in spriting, and while I was able to make small-scale sprites such as the Override squad, spriting an entire bedroom was practically an impossibility in 2020. So, for a little while, I put Casey’s bedroom on the backburner, opting to return to it when I had a bit more practice.

Here we are two years later, and I think it’s more than obvious that I was more than ready to tackle spriting it in its entirety! When I made the decision to give spriting Casey’s bedroom another go, there were two specific goals I wanted to achieve by its completion: for its general look and feel to stay true to the 1990s andfor it to have its own personality.

Now, I know what you’re thinking— “Star, what do you mean give Casey’s bedroom its own personality?”. Well, by that I mean I wanted Casey’s bedroom to look like it actually belonged to a nine year old boy with clear interests, like art and all things space.

I say this because the bedrooms of the Mother series protagonists are a teensy bit… how do I put it… barren. I mean, Ness’s bedroom in Earthboundisn’ttoo empty, but it could have at least benefitted from some baseball-themed memorabilia, given that he’s a baseball superfan in canon.

At least Ness has his own bedroom. Lucas shares his bedroom with his entire family in Mother 3, so there’s not a lot of room (Unintentional pun + 100) for personalization in Lucas’s case, plus it’s less of a bedroom and more of ‘a corner of the house'— there’s not even a wall between it and the main area. And don’t even get me startedonNinten’s room.

Taking a look at what I managed to come up with for Casey’s room, however, I was able to fill every single square inch of it with oodles of personality. It would be tedious to acknowledge every single object in Casey’s room— even by my standards— so I’ll stick with some of my more favorite details!

First and foremost, you’ll notice that Casey has quite an affinity for the interstellar. From his star-patterned blankets to his toy rocket atop his toybox, it’s very clear that Casey someday wishes to travel beyond the stars. I even brought back the space poster I wanted to include since the very beginning!

Fun fact: The large focus of space theming in Casey’s room is a reference to the original, early 2020 version of Override’s (Then known as Mother: Into the Unknown) story, which had a space setting be integral to its plot. I figured basing Casey’s interests on space would be a nice nod to Override’s prototype story arc!

Secondly, to make Casey’s bedroom look a bit like one belonging to a child, there are a good deal of toys strewn about his room. But perhaps his most prized possession of all sits nicely atop his bed… a small tiger plush named Stripes, of which Casey is prone to taking with him everywhere he goes à la Linus and his blanket.

Lastly, while being a detail I added just before posting this, near the bottom left corner of Casey’s bedroom is a cardboard box fashioned into a spaceman helmet with a sci-fi blaster toy a few inches from it. I included these because of the aforementioned space theming, but also because Casey and Lauren playing pretend is absolutely canon, so it’s no wonder most of their make-believe adventures happen here!

On the topic of Casey and Lauren…

Here is a better look of the duo in their nighttime sleepwear, as well as a better look at Stripes and the busted SGN-DRN unit I sprited just for this screenshot! I still can’t believe how much of an improvement this particular version of the SGN-DRN’s sprite is compared to the version of it from the very first faux screenshot; it’s not often I’ll sprite something at a bizarre angle and have it look good!

Having this iconic moment in the story of Override finally visualized is just beyond satisfying, and I hope that you’re as impressed as I am on how nicely I was able to make it look— this is certainly one of my best sprite pieces yet!