For my specialism, I am looking at the role of a character writer. This role is based on creating characters for the story from the player character to the non-player character that the player may meet on the streets of the fictional world. I have chosen this role due to my fascination with the idea of creating a world that the player can be immersed in as well as being able to help bring a story to life with the personalities that are in it. I have chosen multiple sources from which I can research, these include Interviews with videogame writers, an interview with a videogame developer as well as having a look at how characters visual aspects can help to lend to their stories. The experiment that I plan to do will focus on techniques that will help me to expand characters within a story as well as what I can do to give the reader a better view of who the character is outside of the main storyline. From the work done throughout this project, I hope to learn how to create believable characters that are engaging for the audience as well as how a writer fits into the videogame industry and more specifically in a development company.

 

A character writer in the videogame industry must work with the visual artist to help bring a character to life with the world being created. I found examples of this withing an interview with Rihanna Pratchett. During the interview, Rihanna talks about the development of the 2007 game Overlord and more importantly, her experiences working at Triumph Studios. Whilst creating the game, Pratchett talks of how the teams at Triumph created the personality of a character through discussing their morality and how it could be summed up, for example, one of the characters from Overlord named Rose is considered the practical side of evil “right down to checking the temperature of the lava pool”. I think that this is a great example of how a writer can interact with other members of the team to help create a stronger vision of who a character is and how they act throughout the studio and not just within the mind of one person.

 

An interview with Diana Pinguicha showcases how a writer can work their way through the process of creating characters as well as interacting with worldbuilding in the creation progress. When asked if there were any particular wordbuilding processes she would follow, Diana answered that she would pick a culture that she would use as a base for all other aspects of what she would write afterwards, she would then work her closer and closer into the world going from the climate and shape of continents to the colour and species of plant that grow on said continents. This interview gives some excellent insight into how world building can help to affect every minute thing within the world including characters and how they may develop from it. Furthermore, Diana also talks about some aspects of writing that she finds disagreeable, for instance, when a writer creates a humanoid alien race that has no fleshed out culture in the story, she goes on to say that this leads to the character “living in this flat world with no personality whatsoever.”  This interview helps to show how important it is for different aspects of writing to come together and share their ideas to prevent the fiction being created from being bland and unengaging. 

 

Some of the tools I found that are used by writers are generally made to provide a simple outline of what the game will play like and/or how the story will go. One example of these tools is the program Twine, its simple scheme allows it to be used by anyone to help create a storyline for any sort of media. It uses ‘nodes’ which can be linked together in a certain order to create a branching narrative as well as the ability to contain descriptions of what may happen in any given scene. what is more, this program proves useful due to the fact that you can have branching storylines through having multiple dialogue choices which help to keep a record of multiple storylines without the hassle of having to keep track in a written form. Another tool that proves useful in the art of writing is programs like RPG Maker and Construct 3 due to their simplicity, making it easier for an experienced programmer to create a representation of the game that they working on without spending an extended amount of time working on a visual prototype. Furthermore, it would also make it easier for a writer to convey their ideas to other members of the team without having to go through extravagant detail. 

 

The analysis of the game Overlord can help to give some great insight into how to create effective anti-heroes that the player can enjoy without needing to be bound by a moral code. The player character of this game, The Overlord, is a good example of how to create a character that the player can fill the shoes of it also makes it easier for the player to immerse themselves in the world that is being laid before them. The use of dark humour in the game also helps to raise the enjoyment of the game due to the light-hearted tone that is taken to causing mass-destruction upon other people whilst not forcing it upon them, this is built upon the mortality system that the game contains, instead of there being ‘good’ and ‘evil’, there is ‘evil’ and ‘even more evil’. These techniques prevent the player from feeling that they are being forced to do what is ‘good’ because no matter what they do they are still the big bad guy who is going to cause havoc for all others.

 

The game series Mass Effect, Developed by Bioware in 2007-2017, is a primary example of creating a story that is affected by the actions of the player due to its branching storyline choices which have become a staple of the franchise since its release. The implementation of this mechanic helps the player to fell in control of their experiences as well as giving them the feeling as if their action matter. This feeling is built upon with how the various characters that the player meets are affected by what the player does from them saving their pet to destroying their planet. The emotional development, as well as the developing of relationships, helps the player to feel a bond with certain characters causing a high-quality experience and the need to find out more about a certain character’s backstory and experiences. Another aspect of Mass Effect that works extremely well was how the narrative actions of the player carry onto the next game in the trilogy making decisions much more impactful in the eyes of the player. Ontop of that these decisions allow for more development between certain characters due to the events causing new problems to arise for their respective living conditions.

 

Finally, The analysis of the 3rd-person MOBA game Smite provides some brilliant examples of how character storytelling can be done through their visual style. One of the greatest examples of Visual Storytelling is Neith The Weaver of Fates with her wearing an outfit made of linen as a representation of her being the goddess of weaving. Furthermore, she is given a bow in the style of a loom to also reference her ties to weaving but also her link to being the goddess of the hunt leading her to be set as the ‘hunter’ class in the game with a lot of her abilities involving the use of weave traps to make them stronger. Another great example of visual storytelling is Cthulhu The Great Dreamer who is taken from the book The Call of Cthulhu written by H.P.Lovercraft in 1926. Cthulhu’s storytelling comes from his abilities which revolve around his ‘Madness’ mechanic, helping him to grow in power as he drives his foes to insanity. Both of these characters also help to draw a picture of their story with the use of voice lines with Neith saying "Some Egyptians see me with the head of a lioness. It's actually rather fetching, but Bastet gets So jealous!" which references another goddess withing the Kemet religion. Cthulhu also makes reference to his origins with the line “R’lyeh calls once more”.

 

One of the first examples of experimentation I did was the creation if an anti-villain using a guide made by Joesph Parker. I worked on this task by using a pre-existing villain and attempting to transform them into an anti-villain using each step to mark my progress. The villain I used was Bowser from the Super Mario Bros. game, I also used this to provides a few examples of character development during each step, these examples are on the experimentation page of my Wix website. Upon reflection, I think that this is a very good exercise for any writer to preform due to it helping to make a sympathetic character as well as one that has conflicting morals but I think that it does not help when it comes to expanding further than that, for instance, it does not talk of how these changes can help to improve those that interact with the anti-villain.

 

Another piece of experimentation that I performed was some character development exercises created by Masterclass. These exercises help to flesh out a certain character as well as to help give new perspectives on their mannerisms and personality. Furthermore, this task helps a writer gain a better understanding of how the character may act when put into certain situations thus making the narrative of the story hold up better under scrutiny. During my time working on this exercise, I created a character named Jacob Peterson, a cartoon artist based party on Stanley Ipkiss from the film The Mask. I believe that this task is extremely useful in the field of writing due to the fact that it can help to flesh out characters and thus the narrative, although I think that this task can cause some issues if a person plans to complete the entire things since I may cause some contradictions and/or take up an extensive amount of time to complete.

 

In conclusion, the work on this project has helped me to develop my understanding of what responsibilities a writer has with the videogame industry as well as how their work can affect other departments. Furthermore, I have learnt how to flesh out my characters and also how to use visual storytelling to give more depth to their personalities without having to explain it. I believe that this will prove useful in my future career aspiration as it will help me to create higher quality characters as well as making it easier for me to convey my ideas to those around me. Finally, a few things I wish to find out about this area revolves around how I can create character arcs that stand out more amongst side characters as well as how I can make these arcs fit in well with the worldbuilding aspects of projects.