Gacha Character Design: Augustus

01. Introduction

When mobile gaming started becoming a thing on smartphones I never really played them, preferring to primarily game on PC; however around the end of the main COVID-19 Pandemic in 2022 I came across a game called Dislyte, and it hooked me for the next two years; so much so, that I ended up designing a character for the game myself.

As a Game Writer & Designer I wanted to use skills from both disciplines; mainly as a test to see if I could juggle doing both on a project, and I think the results came out quite well.

I planned to use this when applying for jobs in the mobile gaming market, but due to some complications in life I never got around to it. So, now, I have put together a 2026 presentation of my design process for the character. I hope you like it!

02. Concepting Augustus

01. Coming up with a Concept

The playable characters in Dislyte are called Espers, and are based around Deities or Mythological Entities. Most are Asian based, however other cultures such as Egyptian and Scandinavian are represented.

For my own Esper I wanted to tackle the following goals:

Design both the Game Mechanics for the Esper, and Write the Biography & Lore.
Introduce Cosmic Horror Mythology into the Dislyte world, with the Esper being themed around Cthulhu.
Create lore hooks for a new Faction within the game, with this Esper as their leader.

02. Putting a Face to a Name

As a Cosmic Horror fan, I already had a Pinterest board of outer-horrors to reference for inspiration when coming up with the pre-production concepts for the Esper’s look, feel, and personality.

I used this to then mock up his character-introduction artwork based on Dislyte’s existing artworks.

Handsome chap, isn’t he? I envision him as a Cult Leader under the guise of a Religious Leader. Which isn’t a dig at anyone real… anyone at all… honestly…

03. Designing Augustus

03. Esper Profile, Story, and Lore

After finalizing the basics, I began work on filling out the following details based on how Espers were designed in 2022:

The Esper Profile (Character Biography) that players can view about the character.
The Story & Lore Snippets players unlock via leveling up the character.

04. Gameplay & Mechanics

After handling the story & lore elements I moved on to the gameplay design, where I worked on the following:

Designing his in-game Abilities, ensuring they use the already existing mechanics but fulfil a different niche for the Esper when used in a team.
Theming the animations & voice lines of the abilities around the cosmic deity Cthulhu; which involve Tentacles. Lots of Tentacles.

05. Designer Notes

The final piece of work on this Esper was writing the Designer Notes.

This was a collection of information about the character that didn’t specifically fit into the design elements, but would be useful to anyone reading it, such as other Designers, Writers, etc.

These notes were written in 2022/2023, and have not been updated since then.

04. External Links

If you want to dive deeper into Dislyte or its Gameplay Mechanics you can do so here at the following links:

Official Website

Dislyte WIKI

You can also download the PDF for the Augustus, without the presentation itself, using the buttons below or back at the top of the page!