What if you could play fetch with your alien pet in real life?
Our team based Bogo's cute, expressive design on real life animals while mixing in a little bit of magic. A Connect demo opportunity required us to move fast. We saved time by starting with an existing creature design, Anther, from our previous Rift launch title, Farlands. This video shows our inspiration, the red panda, Anther, and Bogo.
We adjusted Bogo's size to ensure she engages players without intimidating them, and maintains eye contact for comfortable interactions.
Bogo needed a large enough head to frame her expressive eyes, allowing her emotions to be readable at a distance. Her head scale traded off against body readability. We struck the right balance so that players felt comfortable interacting with Bogo, but could still read her body mechanics at a medium distance.
Characters require a distinctive animation style to match their world, medium, and product goals. We grounded Bogo's animation in real-world physics and creature mechanics. This gives players a sense of "really being there" that can only be experienced through spatial computing. We pushed fantasy elements and timing to maximize appeal and make this experience feel magical.
I animated these Bogo clips to serve as our style guide and to set the quality bar:
Bogo has world awareness. She's interested in the player's face and other objects around her. When something gets close, like the player's hand, her eyes converge on that object, like our eyes do in real life. Her eye contact fosters an emotional connection with players.
We designed Bogo with behaviors everyone loves, such as petting, grooming, feeding, fetch, and catch. Designing these systems to work believably as 3D spatial interactions added complexity, but were very rewarding for players once we nailed them.
Bogo reacts both positively and negatively to petting, depending on the pet area and her mood.
Bogo playing fetch.
Players can fake-out Bogo with a false throw. It may not be nice, but it's a staple of fetch.
Players can customize Bogo's color by feeding her treats they've baked.
A magical moment: This mother helps her daughter reach a fruit so she can feed Bogo. Giving people opportunities to bridge real and virtual worlds to achieve shared goals — this is the magic of spatial computing!