In Penumbras, you play as unicorn deer called Cervinians, but they're not deer. Why is that?
TL;DR - Slight anatomical changes to the face and spine regions that anthropomorphize the characters. That's it, read further if you want to know specifically how.
In Penumbras, we’re dealing with a crazy premise: You’re playing as religious unicorn deer inquisitors called Cervinians that are fighting against shadowy monstrosities. Which is a bit hard to conceptualize and establish a connection to immediately. This is the problem: bridging that empathy gap so that players can become immersed in our game which is priority number one as a development team.
To solve this issue, we had to anthropomorphize (make them more in the image of humans) the Cervinians while maintaining their deer profile. In other words, making the deer more human to a point where they’re deer but you can read the emotions on them.
Since Cervinians are unicorn deer, we placed a horn on their heads which is the primary means by which they can cast their magic called “psionics” in this world. Psionics is the way in which Cervinians interact with the world in a manner that is similar to ours with manipulating objects but with the magical flair often found in fantasy. So that's the unicorn part checked off. But what about the rest of the body?
Our initial designs of the Cervinians, were just deer but with Catholic clergy clothes thrown on them. Which is weird because its too uncanny, cliché, and lazy at the same time. If it got a reaction where we were repulsed a little bit by its design, then that certainly means the players would be also.
Therefore, had to make slight anatomical changes to be more in line with human anatomy. So that we can bridge the gap between being a human and inhabiting a deer in the world of Cervinae we’re crafting. The first of these changes comes from the face.
The face is the primary emotion center, it is through facial cues that we are best able to understand ourselves. One of the largest yet one of the least acknowledged are the eyes. Typical deer while Cervinians have theirs facing forwards. Another subtle change we have made is actually in the eyes themselves where we have made them like humans. Not to mention that Cervinians have eyebrows which are massive indicators of mood which we have placed upon them.
Image for comparison on left provided by ambquinn via Pixabay
That is in the eyes alone, if you’re to compare the facial profiles of the deer to humans, you’ll notice that a deers face viewed from the front is more rectangular whereas humans have more of a square profile. We then changed the profile of the Cervinians by making the profile ever more slightly square, just so that we can bridge the gap just a little bit.
Another change which will go unnoticed but helps bridge the gap is their spines. When you look at the spines, more specifically the neck region, deer have theirs situated at a more obtuse angle while Cervinians have their necks approach more of a right angle akin to the positioning of the human head. While not immediately apparent, it definitely makes the characters more “human-like” since the Cervinian has the same posture as a human.
These changes of infusing deer with human anatomy help bridge the gap between the player and the world of the Holy City of Cervinae that we have been crafting. Immersion is our number one priority. Anything that can help the player understand and see themselves in our crazy world, we are doing. But this is one of many tricks and development techniques we have used in creating Penumbras.
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