For Bat Cafe, my primary focus was keeping the educational component of the game organic and subtle. As such, the character designs of the bats incorporate key traits of their specific species.
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This ranged from their height, diet and migration territory relative to Willow, the tiny Honduran white bat protagonist. I'm not a herpetologist by any means, but maintaining this attention to detail was very important to me as a storyteller.
For example, the character Acrobat is a spotted bat which has the largest ears relative to its body size of any other North American bat. Using this characteristic, I made his character an EDM performer who incessantly listens to music in his earbud headphones. They are heavy enough for him to throw off his center of gravity, making him both clumsy and somewhat oblivious.
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Angus and I discuss the entire scope of the concept art and development history in the Bat Cafe Art Book. It can be found digitally here: https://angusbeer.itch.io/batcafe