Designing the main character of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes was one of the first things we did for the project: the first 3D model of her existed as early as 2019, just after we had wrapped up Sayonara Wild Hearts. The sunglasses were in place early on. We wanted to give her a lot of interesting details, like the earring and the bowblouse. Her clamshell bag was added much later in the project as the inventory was introduced. It’s still possible to play without her bag with our debug commands, as we had planned for her to lose it along the way. It’s also possible to remove her glasses, and her eyes are fully animated, behind them. In early versions, finding the glasses was a major event, and they were also upgradable and had different features, which gave the game a Metroid-like feel to its progression. To make her visuals interesting when she was not facing the camera, we decided to give her a french twist. The jacket (which you can take on and off at coat hangers) was added late into the project, as we thought it didn’t make sense for the character to arrive at the hotel without it.

As the story evolved, new characters were added during the project. The Man was inspired by the character Guido Anselmi from the 1963 Fellini film 8½, and the artist was inspired by Jenny Lind.