One of the biggest surprises in video games this year was the success of Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Game and its female lead, eight-year-old Clementine.
Clementine joins player controlled Lee Everett as two attempt to find safety during the zombie apocalypse. Sometime before the outbreak, her parents took a trip to Savannah and left Clementine with a babysitter named Sandra.
Clementine hides in her tree house during the beginning of the epidemic and Sandra transforms into a walker. Clementine eventually joins with Lee after he breaks into her home and encounters the zombie form of Sandra.
In a recent feature article in Game Informer magazine, writer and creative lead Sean Vanaman and art director Derek Sakai explained how Clementine came into existence.
"Clementine was literally the first idea," says Vanaman, "Getting people internally excited about it was really challenging. People recognized the hurdle set forth by deciding there's going to be this little girl that's going to be a key feature of the game, but people kept saying yes anyway."
According to Sakai, the team next had to develop Clementine's personality, family life and history in order to create a smart and capable character.
"From the beginning, the designers knew they wanted a character that would act as a moral compass for the main character as he progressed through the game," Sakai told Game Informer. "The designers envisioned a smart, honest, and capable girl around eight years old."
Game Informer points out that, although Clementine's parents are only featured in the game as voice message, they played a big part in the creation of the character and even inspired her choice of clothing in the game, according to developers.
"She's already strong enough to isolate herself from her parents, knowing that her relationship with her parents is so strong that she can always come back inside," Vanaman said. "I really designed her parents before designing who she was. We did that before she was the Clementine in the game."
"She's got a crazy sense of fashion that oddly translates well into the world of The Walking Dead," Sakai told Game Informer. "My daughter won't accept advice from anyone when it comes to her outfits. For example, she'll combine her favorite dress with her older brother's baseball cap and then refuse any shoes at all. Clementine doesn't have parents to tell her what to wear, so her outfits needed to reflect a child's idea of appropriate clothing."
Check out the full feature here on Game Informer. The Walking Dead: The Game is available through digital download for iOS, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. There is also a retail version of the game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Check out Episode 1's official trailer below and don't forget to download Episode 1 for free on iTunes and Xbox Live.
