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 Features
Book Excerpt and Review - Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames
 CREATING CHARACTERS
Character in conjunction with events moves the narrative forward. This means that the characters need to be created with the needs of the narrative in mind. On one level, that means making a protagonist whom the player is willing to inhabit throughout the story—someone who presents an appealing fantasy and an interesting persona. On another, the characters need to be designed with their role in the narrative in mind. A love interest, for example, needs to be lovable, and worth rescuing when he or she inevitably gets into trouble. This is how character moves the plot, by helping to create context and motivation for the player action. Creating strong characters allows the narrative to drive forward naturally.
A game character’s needs are dependent on said character’s role. Minor characters need very few things—a look, a tone, a place in the world, and sometimes, a bit of information to pass on. Returning to Far Cry, the guards have a look (guys with guns), a tone (dumb and sadistic, but talkative), a place in the world (they’re working for the bad guy as muscle, and therefore will shoot you), and occasionally, some info they can deliver.
More important characters have bigger roles and thus need more information. The longer they’re going to be on stage, the more the player will see of them, and thus the more substance they need to have. This necessitates building those characters from the ground up, often putting together vast amounts of detail that the player will never see to make the stuff that the player does see logical and consistent. Jack Carver (the protagonist in Far Cry) never has his backstory appear onscreen— the player never finds out where he came from, why he’s captaining a boat in the middle of nowhere, or where he got his god-awful Hawaiian shirt. But the writer and the team need to know. They need to know where he’s from, so his dialogue can have appropriate phrasing and colloquialism, and so that translators can export this into other languages. They need to know his age and build, so they can construct appropriate models and motion sets. They need to know what he’s done, so appropriate tidbits and references can be dropped into his dialogue. And all of these things show up onscreen for the player, enabling the character to perform his role.
Finally, characters need the traits that make them appealing to the player so that they can serve their roles in the narrative. Much of the action in Far Cry consists of the player trying to rescue, catch up with, or otherwise help out the character of Val. The player feels no resentment at doing this because he wants to rescue Val. Her character traits—attractive, funny, appreciative, brave—(in principle) encourage the player to want to move forward with the action when the narrative says, “Save Val.”
Character is vital in creating the framework of the narrative. The world is not worth saving if there’s nobody in it you want to save. Character can intensify the sense of immersion—you’re working to save people (or elves, or talking animals), not collections of polygons and voice cues. Perhaps most importantly, character drives interaction—in other words, “who” sets the framework for “how,” and in many cases, “why.” Garrett (the protagonist in Thief) is a rogue, a character trait that simultaneously helps define his actions and goals and provides a justification for why it would be unsuitable for the player to rush into a situation prematurely. Miku in Fatal Frame (Tecmo, 2001) has no reason to be in the abandoned mansion except for character. She’s searching for her brother, and that characterization is enough to drive her—and the player—forward.
Whereas new videogames have a freedom to create new characters, for many games, this is not a luxury that can be afforded. Many of the titles produced by the games industry each year are either derived from outside properties—such as the Star Wars films—or exist as sequels in an existing series—such as Resident Evil 4 (Capcom, 2004), Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (Origin, 1988), or King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (Sierra, 1992). Whether the franchise originates inside or outside of games, the issues facing a game in a licensed or franchise context are quite specific.
Because franchise characters have already been established, either in previous iterations of the franchise or in the outside medium that spawned them, there are limits on what can be done to those characters. Particularly in a character-driven franchise such as Batman, the character is the franchise. Any damage or alteration to the character alters everything hinging on the character—comic books, movies, toys, action figures, and more.
Even if the subject is a game character without an outside existence, there are still concerns; for example, if you shatter Mario’s femur in one game, he’s going to have a heck of a time jumping in the next one. As such, the writer is a caretaker of
the franchise, understanding the parameters of the work and ensuring that the
character if handed off to the next game in good shape.
The flip side is that franchise characters come with expectations—catchphrases and identifiers, history, and backstory that the fans know and expect to see again. Duke Nukem can’t suddenly become a pipe-smoking scholar of the later works of Jane Austen; the franchise demands that he be a square-jawed, rootin’-tootin’ killing machine who spouts the phrase, “Suck it down” at every opportunity. Writers who ignore or bypass essentials such as these aren’t doing their job. Part of the writing role is respecting and understanding what has gone before, because if what had gone before didn’t work, there wouldn’t be a title for the writer to work on.
Whether a game features original characters or characters from a franchise, the role of the characters remains the same: they are the vehicle for the narrative, the means by which it progresses and the focus of the story. Without characters, there can be no story. This is as true in games as it is in any other media.
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