When talking about Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac Games has always emphasized the importance of player creativity and individuality in the game. Now they're taking that one step further by offering one talented Polygon reader a chance to travel to Insomniac's Burbank studio to turn their character design into post-release DLC for the game.
Here's how it works. You create a design for your dream Sunset Overdrive outfit and send it our way with a brief description. We'll narrow it down to 11 finalists which will be voted on by Polygon readers. The creator of the most popular design will be flown to Burbank where they'll be welcomed to Insomniac's HQ to help bring their design into the game, where it'll be made available as DLC post-launch.
We're looking for a full costume design, the more fully realized the better.
You've got until August 14 to make your submission, so hurry it up!
What makes a good Sunset Overdrive look? Check out this interview with Insomniac's Gavin Goulden for an idea and then check out these tips from the developer:
Costumes in Sunset Overdrive are generally broken up into many pieces.
Though some items can break that rule (like overalls or jumpsuits) the best costumes use these distinct pieces so you can mix and match to create brand-new combinations:
- Headwear
- Face Attachments
- Hair
- Facial Hair
- Shirts
- Outerwear
- Gloves
- Pants
- Footwear
- Tattoos (Upper body, lower body, Face)
Thematically there are three major buckets in Sunset Overdrive's fashion.
The most successful designs usually combine no more than two buckets together, otherwise it gets tough to parse (i.e., Emo Mardi Gras Cowboy looks as bad as it sounds):
- Mainstream - clothes most would find acceptable like t-shirts/jeans.
- Street - Inspired by street culture such as emo, rockabilly and goth
- Costume - Clothes from a particular cultural group, or even something you might wear for Halloween
The most successful designs add something relatable as well.
Take a familiar outfit and subvert or tweak it to create an unexpected result.
All clothing in Sunset Overdrive is unisex
You can design for one gender's proportions specifically, and items will be translated to work for both genders and all body types.
Physics are supported but largely focused on outer layer items
Think tassles, wings, tails. Nothing can move independently of the human skeleton.
Avoid patterns and finer details
We try to work with bold details so they stand out in gameplay.
Less is more!
Keep it simple.