Technical Post - Evelynution (HotW Spoilers) (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

Just to let you know that this post will contain lots of spoilers for Heart of the Woods. If you haven't played that yet and don't want to have a lot of the plot spoiled for you, then don't read any further than this.

Today's post was actually requested by Alyssa R. It took us a little bit longer to get to it than we'd expected though, heh. Alyssa asked how Evelyn's role in the story developed over the course of the game, since we talked about that for the other main characters.

I'm a little iffy on some of the details, but I'm pretty sure that our starting point for Evelyn was "Disney villain." As you've probably noticed, Disney influence is pretty heavy in HotW. We knew that she'd be Morgan's mom, which is just a step removed from the "wicked stepmother" trope. The rest was yet to be figured out.

Unfortunately, a lot of the backstory that we came up with for Evelyn had to be cut or merely hinted at in order to finish the game on time. In the released version of the game, she's an exiled fairy who wants to be a human, and has been using one unfortunate family as vessels for generations. There's a bit more unspoken nuance to it, though.

Evelyn was a fairy, but she always wanted to be more. And that alone goes against the very nature of fairies. They're a collective, operating without any real sense of self other than the queen. Evelyn, however, was never content with that. She was exceedingly selfish for a fairy, owing to her intense affinity for moonlight that eventually was her downfall. 

Her motives changed a little bit as we went. At one point, she was less evil, and more curious. She wanted to explore, and see the world, and taking bodies was just a means to an end. But as time went on, it was getting harder to work in this detailed backstory without it seeming contrived or convoluted. So we simplified things, making her a bit more stereotypically evil, and thus easier to root against.

After we spent some time brainstorming, her ambitions were settled: More than anything, she wanted to be queen. But she could never be a queen. She was far too self-centered and jealous. So she was cast out, or rather, chose to leave. As a fairy, she was bound to the confines of the forest, and to the whims of their hive.

But humans weren't subject to those same limitations. They could come and go freely, and did so. That's how she hatched her plan. She would take the body of a human, eclipsing their consciousness and replacing it with her own, and so she would be free too. In Eysenfeld, she found that she was able to easily manipulate the poor villagers through a combination of charm and magic, and she did so without hesitation. She schemed to put herself in charge, the eternal mayor of this tiny town. It didn't have quite the same ring as queen, but it was enough for the time. By the time Maddie & co arrive at the forest though, Evelyn has decided that she's ready to leave the forest, and the perfect vessel to help her do so had just stumbled in…

Some details about Evelyn, including her name, were kind of last minute. For one thing, we didn't settle on a name for her until fairly late on. Before we did, we just called her "morgan's mom" or "villain-san" and other such stuff.

The amazing alternate form that she takes in the final scenes were also a last minute addition, thanks to a heroic effort from adi. We felt that the battle was lacking in visual oomph, since there's not really a lot of spell-flinging or movement. So, Adi came up with Evelyn's icy form and worked quickly so we could implement her. That, combined with minute's brilliant use of special effects and clever reuse of CG's made it a pretty engaging scene, all things considered. Well, at least in my biased opinion lol

There's also a bit more history to Evelyn that doesn't really get shown, particularly regarding her connection and past with Geladura. That's a story for another time, and probably better done by Rachel than by me.

Hope you've enjoyed this quick look at making our villain. Until next time!

Josh