Character and setting notes - what could have been, inspirations, and more

I want to share some notes on the characters. Their names and species were something I put a lot of thought into.

As you've probably noticed, every character's name starts with the same letter as their species. But what you may or may not have noticed is that the letters are in alphabetical order, with every letter from D to J. (Granny Hammy covers two letters.)

All four of the playable characters were originally going to be different animals! Here's what they originally were and why they were changed:

•  Dalton (a dachshund) was originally a fox, because as you can probably tell, I love foxes. His species was changed once I decided to stick with the name-species alliteration.
• Ella (an eel) was originally an axolotl, though I didn't have a name for her yet. But then I realized that I had mostly chosen an axolotl because other people on the internet love axolotls. I like them just fine, but I realized I wasn't THAT interested in them. This was my game, so I realized that I should make it the way I wanted to. I think eels are cool, so I have no regrets about changing her species.
• Frida (a flamingo) was originally a quetzal bird, though I didn't have a name for her yet. This was the change I was most reluctant to make, but I did it to keep the alphabetical order.
• Izzy (an ibex) was always an animatronic, but he was originally a warthog named Warty. I thought it would be hilarious for a company to choose a stereotypically ugly animal as their mascot. This was changed once I decided to keep the alphabetical order. In terms of representing obscure animals, I guess I traded Frida for Izzy.

Also, Dalton was originally supposed to be much more deranged and less friendly. There was originally going to be a gag where Dalton drove his car to the store, but he crashed it into the wall of the store. You would be able to interact with the car wreck outside the store, and Dalton would say something along the lines of "What kind of idiot would crash their car into a grocery store? Uh... heh heh... definitely not me..." I guess I had too much of a conscience to write him this way. I wanted him to be nice. However, you can still see hints of his insanity in the final game, such as when he freaks out upon realizing he's out of barbecue sauce.

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Now, some other notes on where I got the names of certain characters and settings:

Dalton was named after the character Dalton Humphrey from The Red Green Show. The town of Possum Lodge in that show was my inspiration for Saveurtown in this game. Not much of Saveurtown is shown in the game, but I imagine it being a small, woodsy town like Possum Lodge. I will show more of Saveurtown if I make a sequel (which is something I would definitely like to do someday.)

Frida was named after the late artist Frida Kahlo. Kahlo did surrealist art, so I felt that referencing her was fitting for such a weird and wacky game.

Saveurtown comes from "saveur," (sa-VAYR, according to Google Translate) the French word for "flavor." This is a reference to Guy Fieri and his catchphrase, "Flavortown." I am considering changing the name of the town to something more easily pronounceable, but I still want to keep the name a reference to Fieri somehow.