characters had fifteen facial shapes, while NPCs had eight. Finding and addressing bugs was a key job for both Climax and Microsoft, who play tested the game in tandem in Britain and America. Notable bugs that were found included graphical glitches with character models, and Ailish's tutorial sequence where her healing spell killed her. Art and graphics The game's art director was James Brace. The lead character artist was Kevin Martin. Another concept artist and character designer was Niki Broughton (also known as Niki Hunter), a UK-based artist noted for her Japanese-inspired illustrations. She stayed on the project throughout production, producing hundreds of hand-drawn and CGI artworks. The designs were influenced by the work of Yoshitaka Amano, along with Western artists including Simon Bisley. Other influences included manga artist Nobuteru Yūki and Korean artist Hyung-tae Kim. The art team included Western and Eastern artists; one had experience with the comic series 2000 AD, while another was a former artist at Square Enix. During early production, the artistic design was aimed at fans of Japanese games, with "cutesy and quite clearly Japanese-inspired" designs for characters. A combination of focus testing and requests from Microsoft resulted in more Western artistic influence being incorporated, resulting in several changes. The environments went through the same process as the character art, with real-world elements incorporated into some locations; the Anthropomorph village of Shadani-Mo drew stylistic inspiration from the Nevada desert and Native American tipis, while Transentia was designed around its "Orwellian" machinery and steampunk-inspired aesthetic. The cultures and locations of Sudeki were created early in production after extensive study of real-world cultures. Rather than directly copying the aesthetic of Dungeons & Dragons as many other RPGs did, the team wanted a unique cultural identity. The opening cinematic was directly inspired by Asian shadow plays. The team also created plants and animals with fantastical twists rather than carrying anything directly from reality. Tal's original design was more in line with traditions for anime protagonists, with long hair and an oversized sword, but was made more realistic while retaining some basic characteristics from the earlier designs. Ailish was designed around a cute anime princess archetype, a concept which survived despite her design changing to become more adult. Of all the characters, Elco went through the most changes; starting out as an Arabic-themed archer, he went through multiple redesigns until the idea of his injury solidified his design