Designing a Video Game Character

Goals of Character Design

• Enhance story• Emotional response• Characters to identify with and care about• Credible within the game style• Create characters that people can:– Find intriguing (even if a villain)– Can believe in– Can identify with

• Distinctive enough to be memorable

Avatars

• Player-designed• Flexibility differs by genre

–Role-playing games usually the best at this –Race, gender, hair, physical attributes, etc.

• Typically no personality at first and is given by the player.

• Goal is tools for players to create themselves

Non Specific Avatar

• Designer doesn’t specify anything.• Allows very tight connection between player

and avatar– Dead Space’s Isaac Clarke

• Limiting for designer

Specific Avatar

• Goals• Personality of their own • Belong in the game• Player’s relationship more complex– Identify with, not become

Semi Specific Avatar

• Only partially characterised• Better to make cartoonish• Common with action game avatars– Mario

Control Mechanisms

• Indirect (“point and click”)– Doesn’t steer avatar, points to where to go. Player

as disembodied guide friend– More likely specific avatar

• Direct– Player steers avatar through game world, doing a

variety of actions as necessary– More likely nonspecific or semi-specific

Designing the Avatar• Nonspecific, semi-specific or specific – Visual, psychological, social

• Direct or indirect control• Goal: character the player can identify with

qualities they can appreciate

Character Physical Types

• Humanoids• Non-humanoids• Hybrids

Defining Attributes

– Superman, upholder of “truth, justice, and the American way”: bright/cheery, American flag

– Batman, Dark Knight of Gotham City (grittier, more run-down than Metropolis): somber

• Clothing, weapons, symbolic objects, name.• Colour palette reflects character’s attitudes or

emotional temperament.

Side Kicks• Most prominent common element in game design• Combine qualities (e.g. tough with cute) to

provide variety and comic relief• Benefits:– Give player additional moves and actions.– Extend emotional range of game.– Can give player information they couldn’t get

otherwise.

Believable Characters• Major characters need rich personalities– Where was he/she born?– What are his/her favourite activities?– What were his/her biggest triumphs in life?– What are his/her interesting or important

possessions?• Attributes– location, health, relationships, etc– Can change as the player plays the game

Believable Characters

• Three golden guidelines to developing effective, believable characters– Needs to intrigue the player– Needs to get the player to like him– Needs to change and grow according to

experience

Character Archetypes• Hero

– Outer problem is aim of game– Inner problem is flaw or dark

secret

• Mentor– Guide character

• Higher self– Hero as he aspires to be

• Ally– Meant to aid the hero

• Shape shifter• Form changer

• Threshold guardian• Progress delayer

• Trickster• Mischief maker

• Shadow• Ultimate evil

• Herald

• Used to facilitate change in the story

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ7YT8Ajr0c&feature=related