Question to Supporters: Would you be interested in "commissioning" an outfit for a Demons Within character to be added to the game?

Hey hey!

I hope everyone is having a good start to the week! This is a bit of a weird post, but let me try to explain it.

A few weeks ago, Blain and I were talking about the bulk of the artwork that goes into the game, and I had a bit of a weird idea. Today I want to run this idea by you all to see what you guys think and gauge who, if anyone at all, would be interested in it.

All of you know that we've had a bunch of different polls for additional what-if costumes for Demons Within characters. And with good results! Through the polls, we ended up making awesome and fun costumes for Garret, Sam, Edwin, and Gunther. Most of them right now have been "beach clothing", but I really want to do some different things. Things like Halloween costumes, modern-day outfits, etc.

Right now, I make those polls for fun and mostly whenever the current Demons Within update affords me to use some of the art budget for something silly like that. That's not always the case in busier updates, however. Since those costumes are not an integral part of the game, they are not a priority, so unfortunately, I can't do that too often.

That got me thinking, however, that while I'm busy directing the game's budget to the story... what if people in general wanted to contribute with their own ideas? I pitched it to Blain and he was accepting of the idea. Accepting as in, willing to do the work of creating and drawing the outfits, so I come here to Patreon to propose it to all of you.

The idea is:

If anyone wants to throw a few extra bucks to support the game, they'd be getting a kinda-sorta of... "commission". You'd get to choose the character and the outfit in general, pay just about what I usually pay Blain to make the full body outfit on the game's sprite, and as a result, we'd have the character in an extra outfit that everyone would get to see. We're thinking something like, say... Captain Garret in detective clothing? Gunther in a biker's jacket? Resnick as a freaking Power Ranger? Whatever, really, as long as it's doable on their in-game sprite and all. I'd have to think up and make the rules properly if we get it going, but I think you all get the gist of it.

Though these special and goofy outfits don't really fit in the main story of Demons Within, I still plan to add them to the game later on as special unlocks. I think they're very cool reimagining of characters in different situations. Blain always tries to put some of their personality in what they would wear in any given situation, and I think that's really cool!

The main goal here would be to create some kind of win-win-win situation. Someone who really wants to see a character in a specific outfit would get the opportunity to get it from the official artist on the official game sprite, the game would be all the richer for having that extra variety, and everyone else would get to enjoy seeing it, too. Blain really enjoys drawing and designing these extra outfits, so there's a small win there as well. x)

Obviously, it goes without saying that this would be completely optional. IF anyone would have the interest, I would look into how to organize it in a way that lets people do it, but also in a controlled manner, as, of course, Blain also doesn't have infinite time to work on that AND on the game stuff and all. We would probably make one to three "slots" available per month or something like that, depending on the workload. This would be an offer provided to Patreon supporters only, as I feel like the supporters on Patreon are the ones who would ever be interested in going the extra mile with something like that in the first place.

Getting to the nitty-gritty part of it, as I think that is also very important to everyone's opinions, the full cost of a full outfit design and drawing on an in-game sprite would cost what I usually pay for Demons Within's spritework. It would cost about $120 to $150 USD to get an outfit on a character, depending on what it is and how it is. This is an estimate, but it'd be something like that for those who are interested.

SO! With all of that said and explained, my question for this post is:

Would you be interested in "commissioning" a Demons Within character in an extra outfit?

I made a poll with a few options that hopefully cover something close to how people might feel. Let me know your thoughts through votes and, if you like, in the comments as well.

I would like to make it clear that it's totally okay to vote strongly for or against this. This is just a question to see how people feel about it, and there are no wrong answers. I'm also just trying to judge how much support to getting them there would be. I fully expect most people to stick with Patreon support only, so it's totally fine to vote and do that. This is just a super extra thing!

And, finally, I would also like to make it clear that even if this did happen and we had this option, I would still make polls on occasion that everyone can participate in! Of course, as you all know, in polls you don't get to choose the outfit, and it's a little harder to choose which character gets it, but I still think they're a lot of fun to hold for everyone, and I wouldn't want to cut them out!

This is it! Sorry for the long post, as usual, but I'm eager to hear you all's thoughts on this!

Cheers!