Character Design

[Jacen]

Character Design
Part I: The Hero

In this Tutorial I aim to teach those taking there first steps in game design how to write and execute a cast of characters for your games. I am writing this tutorial with over a decade's experience in playing pen and paper roleplaying, RPG maker is just a visual extension of that for me. So, shall we begin.

Character Types

Lets Organise the different types of game character that your game will feature into four broad categories and look at each in detail these categories are the Hero, The Villain, the Leads and the Support.

All games no matter how obscure there concept needs these four types of characters.

The Hero/Heroine

I will begin my character analysis with that of the Hero, the most important character in your game. The design of your leading character should be carefully thought out, with all decisions about he/she taken with serious consideration.

The first thing that you should think about with your hero, even before you pick there sprite is whether they will talk in the game. A strange place to start yes, but one that will save you a lot of time. Why would we choose not to have our character talk in our game? Well many great games such as Breath of Fire and Suikoden choose to do this and here is why.

The Silent Hero

The single greatest pitfall any character designer can fall into when creating a lead character, is making he/she unlikable. If the person playing your game does not like your lead they will stop playing your game after ten minutes at the most. By making your character mute or only speak when the player is presented with a choice, you take away this possibility drastically.(how far you go with these choices is up to you, more on that later).

With a mute character you're player never feels annoyed at him saying something stupid because he would only say such a thing if the player selected that option, thus giving the player a sense of control over what is going on in the game world. Never forget however that although your hero may not talk he is still a character with his own traits beyond the input of the player, to achieve this you may have to create or find a sprite with multiple poses to convey a visual sense of feeling. This could be achieved using multiple- expression facesets, however it would look pretty silly having a faceset and no text to go along with it. When used effectively The Silent Hero enhances your player Emerson by giving him control, when used ineffectively it makes him feel both distant and left with a feeling that your game is shallow.

I would also like to note that this option works best in games that are telling a relatively simple story for a more complex one we are better using The Characterised