Technical Post - The Cassi Post (Patreon)

Cassi wasn't supposed to be important. When we were making Highway Blossoms, we discussed designs for Amber, Marina, and the Trio with the lead artist. For pretty much all of the minor characters that they meet along the way, we told Shiyun she could draw whatever she felt like. That included Cassi.

Right off the bat, I "joked" that she had my favorite design in the game. We got the art for her prior to when I wrote the candy shop scene, and I ended up giving her a couple lines of dialogue just so we could keep her on screen longer. Turns out, once the game released, a loooot of other people liked Cassi as well.

(from The Drastik Measure's 2016 review of Highway Blossoms)

(from Remy Fool's 2016 review of Highway Blossoms)

Even right after the game came out, there were people wanting to see more of her. Myself included. As mentioned, the idea of doing more Cassi content has been around for a long time. It's one of the main reasons we chose to set Highway Blossoms: Next Exit in Las Vegas. So, who exactly is Cassi? That's something we only settled on fairly recently.

When we started planning NE, the only real detail we had locked down for Cassi was that she works in a candy store. Everything else was kind of up in the air. What we finally settled on is that she's going to the same convention Amber and Marina are heading to, in order to sell her own, homemade sweets. The first few drafts had her going on behalf of Sweet Tooth, the store she works for, without any real emotional investment in how things go. We eventually decided to change that, and make it so that she's going for herself instead, in pursuit of her own goals. It made the story a lot better that way.

From the beginning, she gets along with Amber pretty well - they've got similar senses of humor, and also similar ways of looking at the world. She also turns out to have a lot in common with Marina, too. It was wanderlust without any real plan that brought Cassi to Las Vegas, the same way it led to Marina meeting Amber.

One of the best parts of being a game dev is getting to put your characters in new outfits, and Cassi's no exception. We knew Cassi would need a more casual outfit for some scenes, rather than her Sweet Tooth uniform that's in the first game. Moekki eventually came up with this wonderful design for her.

She's still got my favorite design in the game, and this only puts her further ahead.

While Cassi isn't the main focus of Next Exit's story, she's still a central character. Getting to develop her and her backstory has been one of the most fun parts of the whole development process. And, honestly, I think we still have interest in telling more of her story someday.

But that's a long way off.

For now, we're finishing up Next Exit and are looking forward to you guys being able to play that soon. As always, take care!

Josh