Creating designs for the main cast of “Harvest of Names” felt daunting at first, because of how much emphasis the gameplay itself and the narrative placed on the characters. “Harvest of Names” is intended to be a deeply personal, narrative-driven experience, and we really wanted the characters and their designs to feel authentic and appealing to players. We wanted people to be able to get attached to these characters that were going to become their friends and trusted confidants over the course of the game, and we knew communicating as much of their personalities and story through their designs and dialogue portraits were crucial to accomplish this. When creating designs for these characters, I really tried to “get into their heads” and thought of what I would wear or how I would cut my hair if I had their personalities and lifestyle. I also tried to find ways I could sneak in personal details or personality traits in the character’s outfits (for example, Io having her necklace clasp in front to reflect her absent-minded nature). I used a similar approach when creating dialogue portraits for them, and I tried to make each expression unique to a specific character and their personality so that although some characters both have a dialogue portrait for the same emotion, they would read differently. Whenever I struggled to come up with ideas (for both designs and the portraits themselves), I would ask other members of the art team and the narrative designers for their input.