Brainstorming

Before I even knew what I was making, I knew I wanted to make a game that was psychological horror; I started with making a list of aesthetics and motifs I really like seeing, and things I would want to play, featuring such 'amazing' half-ideas like:

• Creepy tooth fairy
  
• Haunted circus/carnival
  
• Living/creepy puppets
  
• One idea that was surprisingly fleshed out, involving an witch in the woods (which I am omitting here  in case I revisit it later, lol)

Eventually I had fleshed out two concepts- the aforementioned witch in the woods idea, and the following snippets:

 "A puppet trying to become a Real Girl by gathering body parts"

Visual stylization concept- all art is photocollage, using bits of stock photos, to enhance a Creepy vibe

Between the two, I pitched the premises to my roommates, and both of them agreed that the creepy puppet was way more intriguing of a concept...and so, the initial concept of the story I would eventually name "The Skin You're In" was born.

Fleshing out the Story

(Pun intended.) I knew I wanted to make the puppet a girl- you can even see that in the initial snippet- but I needed to figure out what her name would be. As an admirer of ballet in general, and a big fan of the anime Princess Tutu, I remembered the ballet Coppélia.
The plot of the ballet is as follows:

Dr. Coppélius is a doctor who has made a life-size dancing doll. It is so lifelike that Franz, a village youth, becomes infatuated with it and sets aside his heart's true desire, Swanhilda. She shows him his folly by dressing as the doll, pretending to make it come to life and ultimately saving him from an untimely end at the hands of the inventor.  (Source: Wikipedia)

Originally, her name was just intended to be an homage, but as the story began to grow, Coppelia became a ballerina puppet, and the prima ballerina of a traveling circus....but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

The Involvement of Dr. Janice

Doctor Janice was not originally a part of this story in any way.

Given the fact this is being posted pre-release, before even a demo is available, none of you will understand how major this is of a difference. But, originally, I intended for Coppelia to be acting out and performing the deeds she does due to a bizarre sort of childish logic based on fairytale and a fundamental misunderstanding of how human bodies work. (And who knows- perhaps, after playing, some of you will find this version a more interesting version than what she's become.) 

And this would have stayed this way, had it not been for a question from one of my roommates, Emily: 

"Oh, is that creepy doctor OC you showed me the other day going to part of this?"

Immediately, I replied, " Oh no, he has nothing to do with this." 

And then...I started thinking.

"Well wait, he COULD be."

"...Actually, you know what? He is now."
(In retrospect, this is probably where things started to get out of scope.)

More Characters!

Obviously, the thing that would move Coppelia to yearn for a life outside her circus tent would be love. It was a choice that was immediately clear, as I had decided to make Coppelia an ingenue, and every ingenue has their "world-changing first love. "

The Beloved, originally, had little to no personality, beyond "a young woman who loves Coppelia ."  To contrast with the deisgns I had drawn up for Coppelia already at this point, (that proccess will be covered in another post) I decided to make her dark skinned, short haired, and full figured- the exact sort of mature woman that a sheltered girl like Coppelia would find herself smitten with.

(In case you were wondering- no, there was never a draft where Coppelia's Beloved was a man, lol. I'm a lesbian, but even if i wasn't, I immediately felt like a love story where "a woman changes herself so a man will love her" was wrong for this story, as it immediately came across as too...yandere-ish. Not to mention there's already so many fairy tales that already exist with that moral.)

Then, upon thinking more, I knew that there needed to be another human character for the Beloved to play off of- and that's where The Puppeteer comes in. Personality-wise, I wanted them to be sort of eccentric, and they've retained that core of Weirdo Energy, but over time, they've grown into a... deeper sort of weird.

All four members of the main cast will be getting their own entry on their individual development, both pre and post-release, but I'm sure you can already see how easily and quickly this "simple game" grew wildly out of scope, haha.