Castle Paradox

[Septimus]

I have always felt that atmosphere is the most important aspect of gaming. Because gaming is really a fun way of escapism. In my first game I tried to put a bit of emotion into my characters, and I'm really not sure if it came across or if all my characters are just blank sheets of paper. I would appreciate some feedback on

A) How important it is on making characters deep (Deeper than the storyline even)

and

B) If I succeeded in getting any emotion across in the characters i have already put in my game.

The game is "Age of strife" and yes I am prepared to take criticism gggrrrr :-)
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[Leo]

Well, it's fun when the secondary heroes are "deep", but I have never liked it when the main hero has that much personality.I think the player should be able to feel that he is the main hero. That's why I don't like the main hero saying things and doing things by himself...
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[Uncommon]

I've always though of characters as more important than actual plot.
Leo is actually mostly right about heroes, they should be flexible and are ideally molded by the player's actions, but they still need some level of depth, with motivations and the like, especially in a story-driven game.
I'm going to have to disagree that atmosphere is the most important aspect of desigtn because showing favoritism to one aspect can make for an awful game.
I couldn't stand Alone in the Dark 4 for more than about fifteen minutes because of the poor design and lax gameplay. Sure it had decent atmosphere (except for the absolutely banal voice acting), but that didn't make it a good game.

My point is, yes, atmosphere is important, but hell, every part of designing a game is important. If you're going to make a game just for the atmosphere, you're using the wrong medium.

[The Drizzle]

There are really only two things that drive a plot: the actions that characters take and events that are beyond their control. If you have a game where a lot of the events that take place are beyond any character's control, you don't have a very good story. Characters are the most important part of any story. They decide what happens.
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[Setu_Firestorm]

It's actual very crucial to the "life" in your story for your characters to be deep. They're not just graphics that talk, they're actual people with actual lives, actual problems, weaknesses, insecurities, strengths, likes, dislikes, fears, and so forth.

That's the way you have to look at it, because if you don't give much account to that at all, then the player will not be able to relate to your characters and thus won't be enveloped in the story you're telling.
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[Gizmog1]

I think it's really important for everyone in your game to exude a certain amount of personality towards the hero, be it a nice old lady who gives him some soup, offers him her dead husbands sword, and perhaps tells him some stories, to a snooty rich lady who shoos one of these damned beggin' questers away. No NPC should just speak, the manner in which he speaks and behaves should try and set the player up into liking or disliking him. I've always had a bit of an idea which would incoporate a brothel quite heavily into one town. The hero would of course, develop deep relationships with the girls there, and perhaps he could even attempt to champion their cause, trying to prove they're human, and get them accepted into society. Of course, when the villian inevitably attacks the town, he'd torch the brothel, leaving the player in a town full of people who really don't like him much, and still associate him with the girls who he was helping before. I think you could convey such a sense of isolation and resentment there that the player might never both visit the town again.

The problem is though, that most heroes don't really do much to make themselves lovable. If just a few of the heroes quests were devoted to some typical nice happy things, like helping an aged person with something, or even having him sing songs and tell tales in town, just anything to kind of break the ice, and give him something to do other than slay dragons and rescue maidens. I mean, even giving him a reason to fight, be it a town, a relative, a pretty girl at a tavern he's trying to impress, anything just to make him more of a man and less of a machine, would make me attach more to him.

It's in that same sense that usefulness can attach the player to a character, and this is where you can really pull at his heartstrings. If for instance, our lowly levelled character rescues a big burly knight from the Dungeon, and suddenly those bandits who've been a tough fight all along are nothing with the knight around, the player kind of relaxes a bit, and breezes through the rest of the dungeon. But then, when the knight is killed by a boss, or leaves the player when they're out of the dungeon, the player's suddenly on their own again, and struggling. This could be especially useful if the knight has just carved a big path through the enemy, and has been winning battle after battle against these smaller foes, only to suddenly run into a mage or something, who makes a buffoon out of him. Think of it like a confidence game, you build their trust, get them to put all their chips on 23, and BAM! 42, no winners, spin 'em again.

The opposite is true of villains, and it's on this scale that things work well. Imagine as a pilot in World War 1, flying through the crisp French Air in your Sopwith Camel. Sure, The Kaiser's the reason behind this whole show, and the Germans probably wouldn't be fighting without him, but you're not really mad at the Kaiser. You're mad and looking out for the Red Baron, with his 80 confirmed Aerial Victories, and his evil scarlet paint scheme. He's not more recognizable than the Kaiser, but the fact that he's PERSONALLY claimed the lives of 80 young men like yourself, where as the Kaiser's merely giving out orders, makes him a more hatable villain, and that's what you need to do to make a person hate a villain. Have him ACTIVELY kill people. Not just heroes, but people too. Like Robin Hood, wandering into town to see the strange Sheriff hanging 3 innocent Merchants, and lining up 12 more to be hung. In that sense, you've made the player mad at the Sheriff (When he gets away) for hanging 3, but you've also given him a sense of accomplishment, in that you saved 12 others.

I've been posting too many long posts on this same kind of line of thinking, so I'm not gonna post as much for awhille.

[Kenji Murasame]

The way the character looks tells you about their emotional condition; colour scheme, shape, face; all aspects of character deisgn will show a person a disposition. The better the character design, the faster and more effective you get their emotionals accross. A good character design that matches them will help everything they do and say be more effecitve.

Just "A sheet of paper" isn't JUST a sheet of paper; people tend to make characters attacks just as a system; but really you can (and should) show all kinds of things about the character with their stats, and their attacks; Perhaps a masochistic person has masochistic attacks and a lot of hitpoints? I guess in conjunction with the first point is, everything you do has an effect if you don't do it arbitrarily!

[Setu_Firestorm]

Kenji: It sounds to me like you, too, have watched a lot of behind the scenes on anime character design. They do purposely craft their characters' looks according to their personality and character traits.

What I had fun doing, and it greatly helped Brian and I develop the course of the story to Hoshima (and the first two OHR episodes of it), was took all the cast of characters and said, "If you put these two in a room together, how would they interact/react toward each other?"

If you ask yourself that question about your characters, as if they were actual people, not only will the character development be more fun to do in your production AND your game, but also it will help the conversations and dialogue flow naturally as opposed to thinking really hard about what the character should say next.

These are some of the things that make making a game fun.
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