#sgn-drn
All Kris had to do was follow Susie to the supply closet to retrieve some chalk, yet moments later, they’re a mere twenty-four hours away from the worldwide reveal of Charles Feldman’s Y2K plan.
(Context and a better look at the sprites under the cut!)
I initially didn’t plan on making an entire post for this, but given the effort that went into it (Even if it looks identical to the source material at first glance), I figured it was worthy of showing on my main blog!
As of a few days ago (As a result of my good friend @minxxikuo being a big fan of it and with the veryrecent release of Chapter Two), I decided to give Deltarune a go, and man am I glad that I did. It may have been a good five years since I’ve even touched anything having to do with Undertale, yet Deltarune does enough differently from its predecessor that it’s a whole new experience entirely!
Though, my experience with Deltarune so far isn’t necessarily the point of this post (Though you can find similar insight in the tags). Rather, once I discovered that there was a meme where Kris and Susie find themselves in varying media that isn’tDeltarune (Much to Susie’s frustration), I just had to make a contribution to it.
And what better way to do that than by putting the human and monster duo in the world of Override— specifically, this scene? I went into the creation of it knowing only Knives and whoever else I decided to show it to would understand it to its fullest, though it ended up looking so good that I decided I ought to post it!
The original Deltarune sprites are featured on the left, whereas my Override-styled interpretations are on the right side! Kris was particularly easy to draw a sprite for, the only thing that was challenging for them was trying to match their body type to their original sprite, as well as stylizing their hair.
I was anticipating spriting Susie would be a muchmore daunting task (Because of her overall design coupled with the fact that I had to redraw a veryspecific frame of her), though resizing the sprite just a notch and adding some finer details (Like the pocket on her jacket, the belt loops on her pants and a whole ton of shading) made the process much easier.
Then, there was the fact that I had to recreate the general scene where Lauren’s out investigating the SGN-DRN crash— really, I still had all of the sprites, the toughest thing about the recreation was getting the lighting (Which I didn’t have on-hand) to look as identical as possible to the original. Suffice to say, I think I got pretty close!
For a joke I only intended on showing a couple of people, I’m still really proud of it, and am happy to have put my spriting smarts to good use for such a creative meme!
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!
