“So after a rough couple of months, I finally found an assistant. His name is Edwin. He runs this farm here on Azedo. Okay, he’s less of an assistant and more of a guy letting me use his spare barn and giving me some food and shelter. In exchange, I promised to help him with some of the machinery around here. He even said anything unfixable I can just have. He’s pretty nice, but he just seems so lonely out here. Told me he used to have a family and a friend, but the family passed away I think, and the friend left on some adventure.” – Wolfe’s Logs, Entry #256
In the story of The Chaser’s Voyage, Edwin Drage is your childhood friend who grew up besides you on your remote home planet, Azedo. A simple farmer who has never left his own little world, both figuratively and literally. Everything changed when you reappeared after surviving a deadly pirate attack and being stranded on a desert planet. He helps you recover and witnesses you getting your ultimatum to deliver one million units to Lady Styx in one hundred days. It’s because of Edwin that you meet Wolfe, who appoints you as the pilot and captain of her ship, the Chaser. When it comes time to take off on your voyage, Edwin is quickly appointed the Chaser’s shield system’s operator, despite the fact that he has never wanted to go to space, and reluctantly becomes your fourth and final crew member.
Edwin is best characterized by his constant worry and inexperience. He seems to be the only one on your crew concerned that any moment could be your last as you weave through dangerous asteroid fields and shake off pirate pursuers. This deep concern for everyone’s safety, particularly his own and yours, makes him the perfect person to operate your shield systems. He will always be the first to remind you that you can never put enough power into your shields to absorb the damage you take during the course of your journey. Edwin is also a fish-out-of-water who knows barely anything about the larger galaxy. For players starting up their first voyage, you too might have a lot of the same questions regarding the UGS, the Empire, the war, the ceasefire, the bounty hunter’s guild, the pirate lords, and other galactic topics. Luckily, your crew, through various conversations and your ever expanding crew journal, is more than happy to explain everything to him.
Despite his, sometimes, overwhelming anxiety, you’ll learn that Edwin is more than just a simple farmer who has no place amongst the stars. Edwin is very attentive to his job (often stressing out about whether or not he’s doing good enough), he displays an actual concern for the clients you pick up, he’s your crew’s best chef, and, at times, you might even see his worry slip away as he takes in the amazement of going off on a real adventure.
Edwin’s real defining trait though is his undying loyalty, which you’ll see grow and evolve as your voyage becomes more and more like the nightmareish experience Edwin always thought it was going to be.
Edwin’s design remained fairly consistent throughout most of our development. Character designer and concept artist, Nate Donahue, at first presented a design of a more lanky male character in a jumpsuit to be the “childhood friend who hates space travel” type character. Eventually, Azedo was fleshed out more to become a kind of small, farming planet and Edwin became a farmer. We didn’t want to change his design to be something more “farmer-esque” and so we decided that his farm was mostly automated by robots that he would be in charge of repairing and maintaining. In reality, the most change we made to Edwin was his jump suit color, which was originally tan. We decided it should be blue to match the color motifs for shields, making it easier to remember his role.
One element we were excited to keep was his purple eyes, which in the universe of The Chaser’s Voyage, has a special significance. We’re not going to say what that significance is yet, so you’ll have to keep following us to find out. When it came time to get the final art down, Zachary Noah (Link is NSFW and 18+ ONLY) thought it would be good to add something small, like a necklace.
Personality wise, Edwin was always meant to be the most inexperienced of the crew, with an absolute fear of anything space travel related. This led to a lot of good opportunities for him to play off the personalities of the others. Since your character doesn’t talk, Edwin was also perfect for serving as a point of view proxy, asking any questions the player might have about the universe they were now in. Edwin’s voice is provided by our lead programmer and other Bright at Midnight Game Designer, Cameron S. Chapman.
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