Comcept Reveals Mighty No. 9’s Ray

A couple of weeks ago, Comcept dropped an intriguing teaser on us for a potential downloadable content idea they had for their upcoming title, Mighty No. 9. Now, they’ve gone ahead and given the full scoop on what this shadowy character is all about.

For starters, the main thing they seem to want to emphasize is that this would not ship at the same time as the game; that is, it would be extra content in the game itself, except it won’t be ready by that time, hence the need to be downloaded. It almost sounds as if to imply that it wouldn’t be paid DLC, but they don’t really say as much explicitly.

The content in question would, of course, be the character we saw previously. Tentatively named “Ray,” he is the collaborative brainchild of Keiji Inafune, Director Koji Imaeda, and Character Designer KIMOKIMO, who wanted to create a rival character for Beck that would be “a lone wolf character with no siblings; a robot with a big hole in its chest where its essential (?) core should be…”

[Inafune] wanted a sense of mystery, so he told us not to reveal the whole design at once, but maybe just start with a cool-looking silhouette…

KIMOKIMO: That was when I showed him the sketch I’d made before, and mentioned the idea of putting a hole in Ray’s chest. That triggered something in Inafune-san, who suddenly started showering us with ideas!

INAFUNE: “What if the hole in its chest means Ray’s incomplete somehow – slowly deteriorating over time?”

“And what if Ray has the same absorption ability as Beck, but needs to absorb other robots to survive? How cool would that be!?”

IMAEDA: …in an instant, we had the main themes of our new character idea!

Though he sports a look familiar to what fans of Mega Man have come to associate with rival characters, the designers had tried several other looks first, including bat wings, a tail, and bandages to go for a robot-vampire look. However, they felt this made him look more like a regular boss. Instead, they felt the cloaked look with deteriorating Xel components was best.

In order to complete the content which Ray would be a part of, Comcept is looking to raise more money. $198,000, to be precise. Handily enough, they’ve even gone ahead and offered up how that cost breaks down into the development of Ray as a game component:

• Game design (character + stage): $19,000
• Graphic design (character + stage): $14,000
• Modeling (character + stage): $25,000
• Animation (character + stage): $50,000
• Effects (character + stage) $24,000
• 2D assets (stage): $6,000
• 3D assets (stage): $20,000
• Programming (character + stage): $32,000
• Sound (character + stage): $8,000
• Total: $198,000

“Where did we get that number?”, they ask in our stead. “We worked with Mighty developer Inti Creates to come up with a safe estimate, based on our early ideas for the stage and Ray (note: exchange rates have moved 10% or so in the last couple months, but we are still playing it safe).”

They also note that there are royalties which need to be paid to the platform holders as well, but if they can make the $190K minimum, “we can safely say we can cover the rest of the costs ourselves.”

So if they manage to reach another $190K by year’s end through “slacker backers,” then come Summer 2015, “all” backers will receive a code with which to download the additional content into their copy of Mighty No. 9.

That’s the gist of the Ray story, but if you want more details about how they came to design the character and the sketches they did along the way, then click here. You’ll also find a breadth of Halloween-themed fan art as well!

Thanks to Murkman for the tip, via Siliconera!

Note: The contents of this article have been edited somewhat to add more details regarding the character’s creation, as well as a bit we missed regarding the $190K being the minimum needed before Comcept can cover the rest themselves.

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