Week 10: The elements of Game Design - Story and Character

Well stories and characters eh. We all know many stories which have been turned into games, and ones which just plain have a small plot made specifically for that game. Nobody can turn round and tell me that they havent become attached to a game character in some way, whether it be towards the main chacter or thier aquaintances, or one of the more evil guys. Sometimes its just pure gaming addiction which draws you into the characters.

The characters are made to fit around the story, You have to be able to look at a character and see what thier personality is like or what kind of backgorund they have come from. This can sometimes be very challenging especially if the designers are given a very vague description of what the character should be like. If a character however is being produced for a game, which is based on a film, they need to make the chatracter look as much like the character as they can, without breaching copywriting laws and being sued. Films such as James Bond, Scarface, Godfather, Fantastic4 and Harry Potter have all been made into games. Nothing is identical and each shows the progress of the film......but through a game. You become the famous characters and fight the battles they have (obviously with more in the game but u know what i mean). I, myself became attached to Fantastic4 when i played it...but then maybe thats ebcause i used to love the comic, cartoons and film when they were all released....that probably plays a huge part.

Any big Godfather fan would enjoy playing the game, acting out that main role, beciming the villan. For me, ts more the story of the game which draws me in. I got attached to Harry Potter but then again, i love the books and couldnt put them down. I admit it did create high expectations of the games and it did take me a while to get into all of the games, but once i started playing them i couldnt stop. The characters were made to be pretty much identical to the characters....unlike those in Resevoir Dogs which had to be changed slightly for legal reasons.

The appearance of the characters, if taken from a film, can be important, as i started earlier, they have to look as close to the characters as possible without breaching copywright laws. In this respect the appearance is important, however if its a story made purely for a game such as SSX games and Unreal Tournament, mthe appearance as such doesnt matter. Obviously the characters have to fit within the game settings, however they dont nescasarily have to look like things e.g. a real life character. The script can help determine what the character will be portrayed like i.e. what the character has to gather about them and thier personality from thier appearance, however this isnt always important, especially if the story line is non existent as in some games!!

Im not sure what exactly draws me into a game. Sometimes its the fact that its based on a film, book or comic which i like as a child or to the modern day, sometimes its because the storylin e appeals to me., But then other times it can just simply be a mixture of all thinhgs, graohics, story, characters, realism and things like that. I love all genres of games and wil attempt to play different ones, not all of them i like i admit, but most of the time they are ok. I wonder what will come in the future.......