BEHIND THE SCENES

How to make a new Best Fiend

Best Fiends - Match 3 Puzzles

Puzzle Adventure Matching Game

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Character design is hard. You can’t just stick a pair of googly eyes on someone – or something – and expect players to care about them.

Does the character’s look reflect their personality? Are they readable at a glance? You can see just how good Finnish creator Seriously is at this stuff in its excellent puzzler Best Fiends.

Each Fiend is inspired by a real-world insect, so when the game’s design team starts sketching out a new creature, there’s a lot to consider.

“We look at the attitude of the insect and then try to reflect that,” says Best Fiends design boss Reko Ukko. “A good example is Tantrum. Dung beetles are built like tanks and have a pretty aggressive look to them, so it made sense for Tantrum to have a bit of a Marine Corps sergeant feel to him.”

Fiends like Tantrum are inspired by the ‘attitude’ of their real-world inspirations.

For the game’s newest cast member, the team at Seriously decided to do something different. In early 2018 at Apple Regent Street, a crowd of iPad-wielding children helped Ukko and lead character designer Miguel Francisco create a new sea slug character.

The Best Fiends creators invited young people to help them design a character.

“It was amazing to see the kids do their own interpretation of the sea slug, and see that they considered the same aspects as us,” says Ukko.

Just like any good design team, the kids wanted the Fiend’s look to reflect its personality. So this shy sea slug’s final look actually evolved from a sketch of it hiding under a large baseball cap.

The sea slug character evolved to reflect the creature’s shy nature.

“We looked at various sea slugs and integrated that organic ‘cap’ into the design,” says Ukko. “It made them feel like someone who would initially be a bit shy, but quickly warm to you.”

The character’s eyes reflect this new creature’s bashful nature, too. “We went from regular humanlike pupils to simpler, darker dots,” says Ukko. “Even though you lose some emotional readability, we can control the attitude and feel of the character by just adjusting the shape of the ‘cap’ and by changing its posture.”

This final version of Splendid is now in the game.

And lo, the crowd gathered at Apple Regent Street christened our new Fiend: Splendid. “The name reflects the positive, can-do attitude and feel of the sea slug,” says Ukko.

You can find our new crowd-created critter lurking in Best Fiends now – a splendid thing indeed.