Character Driven Game Design

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174 Character-Driven Game Design After these steps are completed, a very basic structure of the gameplay and character design exists. To continue making the design more detailed, iterating can be started by beginning to add more detail to characters taking into account the additional information about what is required to make them socially believable. The added characterization can provide additional or refined goals for the player which in turn requires addition thought about how the actions of PCs and NPCs trigger other actions. Iterating in this fashion can continued until the wanted level of detail and complexity is achieved. New iteration can also take input from play testing with various types of play testers (c.f., Rouse [34] and Schuessler and Jackson [35]). Case: Lies and Seductions 3 The game Lies and Seductions is designed and developed Petri Lankoski, Tommi Horttana, Niklas Gustafsson, Kimmo Karvinen, Reetakaisa Neittaanmäki, Linda Kronman, Anne Parkkali, Raisa Omaheimo, Mike Pohjola, and Jari Suominen. Lies and Seductions 3 is a game designed using the methodology presented in this paper, and it used to illustrate the method. The game is inspired by a classical story Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (first published in 1782). The designer took the main characters and their relations as a starting point. In the story Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont make a wager on if de Valmont can seduce beautiful and chaste Madame de Tourvel. In the following first the character and conflict design is described followed by how the gameplay design choices were influenced by these. Character and Conflict Design Character and conflict design of the game went through many iterations, which we are not discussing in detail—only important choices are depicted. Designed team chose to inverse the roles in the conflict. The player character is Abby (counterpart is de Valmont) who makes a wager with her friend Becca (counterpart is Marquise de Merteuil) to seduce Chris (counterpart is Madame de Tourvel) the lead of a Christian rock back, publicly promised to stay virgin until marriage. Abby, Becca, and Chris and are on holyday cruise. Chris is traveling with Emma and Ed, the bass guitarist in Chris’s band. Emma and Ed were introduced as the designers wanted to complicate the conflict, and make it possible to give players more choices. Seducing Chris should be impossible without some help from his fiends, but getting Ed or Emma to help should not be straightforward either. Designers wanted to make Abby blackmail Ed or Emma. To help forming positive allegiance with Abby, Lord James was added to design. His main role is to lower moral standards of the game world. The next step was to deepen the characters based on Egri’s dimensions to fill these functions (Egri’s dimensions were used in the design even before the following description, for the sake of simplicity this is not presented). For Emma and Ed, the designers needed sociological and psychological traits enabling blackmailing. They both like Chris
Article 6 175 and want to be in good terms with him, so blackmailing is needed both to motivate their behavior and to give sub goals to the players. For Ed the design solution was to make him a gambler with alcoholic tendencies. Just before the cruise he has lost considerable sum of money in poker tournament, and is broke although he will not refuse to play if asked. The overall design choice that every character was meant to be seducible by Abby required Emma to be a lesbian (or bisexual). This was decided to be key to blackmailing Chris’s sister Emma; as Chris is religious and not approves premarital sex, it was obvious extension that Chris thinks that sex between the same sexes is unnatural. Emma, again, knows that and is afraid what happens with their good relationship if Chris finds out that she is lesbian. This serves as a hook for blackmailing Emma. To give depth to Ed, he was decided to be the songwriter of the band. Also, to make him even less stereotypical, the designers made him doctor of philosophy. As Lord James needs to set low moral standards, he needs some negative psychological traits: he is pushy, chauvinist, womanizer who likes to boast about his exploits. Chris, naturally, is a devoted Christian with high moral standards. To contrast this he was made to be charismatic rock star. Figure 1 shows concept art for the characters. The concept art was based on character descriptions. Becca was only minimally designed, as it was not possible add her to the game due the lack of animator. She appears only in dialogue, intro, and end cut-scenes. Abby is charismatic, social, extrovert single who is good with seducing men, but bad to keep up relationships. She is also bisexual. She likes clubbing and partying, and time to time, she enjoys playing poker with her girl friends. She an editor in fashion magazine, in which Becca is managing editor. To provide grounds for positive allegiance despite Figure 1: Character concept art: Emma, Chris, Abby, Becca, Lord James, and Ed (from left to right).
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Aalto University Publication Series
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Contents List of Publications 9 Ack
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List of Publications This thesis co
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Introduction To explain my interest
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1. Introduction 13 Game designers h
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1. Introduction 15 tertainment. Whi
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1. Introduction 17 and involuntary
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1. Introduction 19 dition, the game
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Game Characters Characters are an i
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2. Game Characters 23 can fly, and
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2. Game Characters 25 Figure 2.1: H
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2. Game Characters 27 David Houghto
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Game and Gameplay Design First, I l
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3. Game and Gameplay Design 31 Figu
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3. Game and Gameplay Design 33 what
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Character Engagement and Game Desig
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4. Character Engagement and Game De
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4. Character Engagement and Game De
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Conclusions My study has two primar
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5. Conclusions 43 Factor Perceivabl
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5. Conclusions 45 PC that lead to s
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References AARSETH, E., 2004. Genre
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References 49 Behavioral Neuroscien
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References 51 New York: John Wiley
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References 53 NICHOLS, S., 2004. Im
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References 55 K., C-64 version. Mas
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Research Material Assassin’s Cree
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Appendix 1 59 Quick Start Cthulhu.
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Gameplay Design Patterns In this Ap
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Appendix 2 63 Detective Structure I
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Appendix 2 65 accepted and disallow
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Appendix 2 67 References —— art
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Appendix 2 69 sibility of Surprises
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Appendix 2 71 —— Modulates: Cha
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Appendix 2 73 (Egri, 1960) of a cha
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Lies and Seductions Credits CREATIV
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Article 1 77 Characters in Computer
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Article 1 79 It is important to not
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Article 1 81 attacks, which are all
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Article 1 83 almost anything in the
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Article 1 85 situation(s) —— Ch
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Article 1 87 its physiological, soc
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Article 1 89 Banner. Obviously, it
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Article 1 91
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Article 2 93 Player Character Engag
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Article 2 95 elaborately simulated
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Article 2 97 affects and performing
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Article 2 99 (Björk and Holopainen
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Article 2 101 player would fear the
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Article 2 103 available and what po
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Article 2 105 Many games also use c
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Article 2 107 petty criminal, Tommy
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Article 2 109 site for empathetic e
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Article 2 111 Grodal, T. (1999). Mo
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Article 2 113 emotion. Personality
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Article 2 115
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Article 3 117 Gameplay Design Patte
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Article 3 119 are constructed predo
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Article 3 121 ter, especially in ga
Page 123 and 124: Article 3 123 General overview Clau
Page 125 and 126: Article 3 125 similar goods. This i
Page 127 and 128: Article 3 127 Conversational Respon
Page 129 and 130: Article 3 129 is very strict one an
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Page 133 and 134: Article 4 133 Gameplay Design Patte
Page 135 and 136: Article 4 135 described in this pap
Page 137 and 138: Article 4 137 the ANT, is seeing a
Page 139 and 140: Article 4 139 Egri’s Premise rela
Page 141 and 142: Article 4 141 Reactions as they do
Page 143 and 144: Article 4 143 this can be seen as a
Page 145 and 146: Article 4 145 heathens as part of o
Page 147 and 148: Article 4 147 Faction member will h
Page 149 and 150: Article 4 149 Discussions In this s
Page 151 and 152: Article 4 151 than character relati
Page 153 and 154: Article 4 153 Conference, 2007. 30.
Page 155 and 156: Article 4 155 Name Information Pass
Page 157 and 158: Article 5 157 Lies and Seduction Pe
Page 159 and 160: Article 5 159 Figure 2. A gameplay
Page 163 and 164: Article 6 163 Character-Driven Game
Page 165 and 166: Article 6 165 and physique); ——
Page 167 and 168: Article 6 167 —— providing goal
Page 169 and 170: Article 6 169 Part of a character d
Page 171 and 172: Article 6 171 Character Defining Ac
Page 173: Article 6 173 given that the traits
Page 177 and 178: Article 6 177 rectly available to a
Page 179 and 180: Article 6 179 4th ed. Steve Jackson
Page 183 and 184: Petri Lankoski MA, Lecturer, Game D
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