Restitched: From The Vault | Gashapons (Patreon)

The Gashapon (or 'Gasha') was a very early concept we created when trying to figure out how we would give assets to players. They would sparkle with confetti inside and the bottom piece of plastic would match the player's assigned color. They were intended to pop open and reveal a collectable item once Stuffy ran into them.

We've touched upon Gashapons previously in our 'First Steps' Dev Diary - but in this edition of From The Vault, we'll be revealing some more info - as well as showing some previously unseen development images and a gif!

Gashapon were first conceptualised by our 2D artist Carter on January 21st, 2020:

The team loved it. Wherever possible, we like to make links with real-world objects. This helps to build our crafty ‘bits and bobs’ aesthetic, and solved the issue of gifting assets to players.

The Gashapon was then modelled by Lead Modeller Ozy on February 2nd, 2020. Here are the first screenshots shared by Ozy on that date:

Once the model was complete, we worked on adding glitter and a glow to help symbolise to the player that this was an important item.

...and here's some footage of the Gashapon with old Stuffy and our Tofu character (that we used as the player controller before Stuffy was rigged and animated):

We never quite perfected the Gashapon before deciding not to go forward with this method of distribution. Functionality was never actually added, and the dimensions and aesthetic were never completed. Still, you can get a sense of what we were going for in these development images.

And here is a screenshot of the Gashapon in Unity!

Fun fact: the icon that we created for the Gashapon is actually still in the game files today as part of our icon fonts! It remains unused though, and is likely to be one of the first replaced should we need the space.

Ultimately the Gashapon was removed as we looked into other methods of giving assets to players. Saying that - we’ve yet to 100% commit to a method, so could the Gashapon return? Never say never!