#yes im making that joke again its hilarious
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!
