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In every story there are characters that makes up the cast. They come in all kinds of different appearances and behaviors that try to copy real people. Trying to feel like actual human beings is what grabs our attention and causes us to care about them in a story.
What can make a character better, is to see them face something called “Character Development”. This post will go over the difference in character usage and storytelling in video games from other forms of media.
Post Discussion List
- How do Video Games Present Characters?
- Cutscenes
- Gameplay
- Theme Songs
- Story Mode
- What is Character Development?
- Character development in video games
- The Different Forms of Storytelling
- What are video games strengths and weaknesses in storytelling?
Get to know how storytelling and characters are presented and used in video games.
How do Video Games Present Characters?
Video games have to present their characters and story through cutscenes and gameplay. This can be done by spoken dialogue or written text.
Cutscene: An event that takes place during a game’s playtime that is cinematic for players to view.
Cutscenes are simply watching a clip in a game that involves no interaction from the player. A good way to think of it is looking at an animated movie to show only what is necessary for the scene. They can be from thirty seconds to ten minutes, it’s all up to the writers.
It is an excellent way to present plot points and characters in a game. There are different ways a cutscene can be displayed, but the only types are animation scenes and dialogue text. It all depends on the style the creators want for their game.
Example 1: Cinematic Cutscene (CGI Scene)
These are scenes with the most graphically intense use, that was for major parts of a game (especially introductions and endings). As being high quality, they are seen the least and are the shortest of video game cutscenes. This was really used for games before high definition exists. Now the appearance of normal scenes is looking like them, as game’s graphics keeps advancing.
Example 2: In-Game Cutscenes
This is the average scenes that video games show. They can be an animated video scene, or the characters have text boxes. The in-game models of the characters are used but having them animate better.
Example 3: Still Image Scenes
There are mainly two characters talking back and forth standing still. The dialogue is alternated and sometimes there is voice over. This is the easiest way to do a cutscene and the appearance can be 2d images or 3d models. Developers are really creative using this method.
The Last Story Conversation Scene
Gameplay: The actions of a game that is focused on the core concept of what the player will be doing.
Gameplay is the heart of a video game and is a combination of game mechanics. It is the primary actions done by the player and is part of a game’s identity. The game’s genre is most of it, however the ways a series uses that genre is what makes IPs different from each other.
Gameplay always involves the player controlling something, and a character can be displayed by using them in action. What makes a video game different from everything else, is there has to be interaction or input involved with the player. Without that, it would be a different medium.
Theme Song: A music track that is solely related to a character or theme of a game.
Character design, cutscenes, dialog, and gameplay is all used to express and showcase a character in video games. Another example is giving characters a theme song. These songs (music or vocal) should be used to describe a character’s personality, experience in the game, and their inner thoughts and feelings.
Example 1: Character Theme with Lyrics
Sonic Adventure’s Sonic’s Theme “It Doesn’t Matter” is a song about Sonic’s morals on being a hero and has some of his carefree personality.
Example 2: Character Theme Music Only
Mega Man X4 “Zero Theme” matches what is going on with Zero in his thoughts about being created. You can hear the struggle of him trying to fight that answer by staying true to himself. The feeling of his diligent and cool attitude is in this too.
Story Mode: A piece of content with a plot structure, that players progress through from start to finish.
Puyo Puyo Tetris is a puzzle focus game. The story mode allows it to show the character’s personality more, outside of their designs and phrases.
Giving games a story mode is a useful way to show characters. It is an opportunity to give players an understanding on who the characters are. A story mode for a single character or full campaign, is a good idea for genres that has it more difficult to express their characters.
What is Character Development?
The biggest thing to know is noticing a change to the character in some area.
Character Development is when a character experience a personal change from who they were normally. That change can be in their behavior, beliefs, motives, perspectives, feelings toward something, and maturity. All of these examples can occur through the progression of a story.
The events that take place in the story and the world they live in can affect a character. Some examples are someone getting a new job, a change in a relationship, financial status, improving at something, and being in a different environment. From these experiences, the effect of how a character changes can be good or bad.
Here is a video example of what character development looks like.
Character development in video games
Video Games uses character development in their stories. Just like other mediums, having a plot of some sort is how game characters can experience a change. Without a story there is no way a character can become different at all. If a game has characters and no existence of a plot, the other option is to have a character biography section. This place explains information of them and relationships with other characters in the game.
Super Smash Brothers had trophies that gave brief information of characters from game series. Reading these were great to learn a little about something I didn’t know in a series and its characters.
The type of game is a big part of how storytelling is used and the characters. For example, you can know more about a character and see their development in a RPG more easily than a racing game.
Character Development in a video game could affect gameplay too. For instance, after a certain plot moment, a new ability is unlocked, or a new game mechanic is learned. This can work together with the narrative of a game by doing something to the gameplay.
The Different Forms of Storytelling
Books, comic books, movies, plays, television shows, and video games are examples to tell a story. The stories can be told and presented differently for each medium. For instance, a movie based on a book will have parts that is missing because movies are limited in their length.
Season two of Sonic X focus on the plots of the adventure games. Everything is the same, but some parts are missing or added from the games. The show still goes through the main parts of the story, but is presented differently. I think it’s a good example of how to tell the same story from a different medium.
Sonic Adventure 2 scene comparison
What are video games strengths and weaknesses in storytelling?
All forms to present a story have their own strengths and weaknesses. Here is a list of what they could be for video games.
Strengths
- The Gameplay
- Players controlling the character
- Cutscenes
- Text box dialog
- Data information to read about the world and the characters
- Side Content
Weaknesses
- Developer Limitations
- Budget
- Gameplay
- Side Content
- Video Game genre and its style
- Showing character development
- Story Length
Side Content
Fire Emblem has support conversations in the game, which are events that displays more about the characters in special conversations. This is earned through meeting conditions in the battle parts of gameplay.
Side Content is optional and can be used to explain more about the game’s world and characters. A good example are side quests. This can be bad because someone could ignore the content and miss out on good information that is not part of the main game.
Data Sections
Kingdom Hearts has Jiminy’s Journal that contains information of everything from your progress to data on characters and heartless.
Some games have data sections (in a menu or a location) that will explain everything. It’s like an encyclopedia on things like locations, plot summaries, historical events, character bios, game data records, and enemy information. This is good for giving the player information up front, and it’s all optional.
Gameplay
Another way to express a character in video games is giving them things that relates to their character. Role playing and action games have characters skills or special abilities that matches them in the names and their use.
Gameplay is a strength and weakness because you can learn about a character by what they can do, their in-game dialog, and animations. The bad side for gameplay is having less space for cutscenes. This does matter, but that makes a video game stand out from everything else. You can learn about the settings, characters, and story of video games through gameplay, which is part of the experience.
Developer Limitations
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker had two cut dungeons because of deadlines. This limitation had the developers to come up with an alternative that would work for the game. The change affected gameplay such as new items and possibly story. The good thing is it maybe only effected the Island’s story session and not the main plot.
Every game is made from the developer’s capability. This can affect everything in the development process, which includes how long a story should be. There are factors such as budget, meeting deadlines, and team size and their skills. Situations like these will change things that was planned and could lead to ideas being cut. Developers have to adapt with what is possible and create a good product. This goes for both high professional companies and independent ones.
Playing As the Character
Controlling a character is another big strength. Most of it is appearance, but simply using them can cause a person to like one. Games that are not story driven, really does this. Playing as a character you enjoy, will create a bond between the character and the player.
Games with multiple playable characters is bigger with this. People enjoy characters they’re comfortable using and become a main to the player.
I think presenting characters and story is hard for a video game because of gameplay. It takes up most of the time and people should expect that. Gameplay can be an advantage that other story telling mediums don’t have.
From writing this, I learned characters cannot experience development without a story. The next part of this character/story post will be a list on five characters that shows development.
Thank you for reading this. I wanted to add character development in this part, so I can get straight to the list in the next one. Do you think character and story in video games is easy or hard to showcase?
Part Two
5 Characters in Video Games that has Character Development
Let’s Talk and Learn about games.