Character Design: Theory and Practice

1. An examination of atypical character design to better understand the application of theoretical character archetypes. Character Design: Theory and Practice

2. Essentials of Design (readings) • Dominance/Friendliness/Personality • Psychologically Determined • Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow) • Visual Queues • Posture • Expression • Gait • Other social Queues can translate to in-game characters.

3. Essentials of Design (cont.) • Gender Effect • Stereotypes vs. Reality • Accurate assessment of Interests • Appropriate interactions/puzzles

4. Atypical AI Design:Fire In Far Cry 2, procedurally generated fire can work for the player by confusing and/or killing enemies yet still remains dangerous Source: UbiSoft

5. Fire? • Fire directly addresses the lower levels of Maslow's Hierarchy. • Dangerous • “Unpredictable” • Depends on surroundings Source: Wikipedia

6. Gameplay programmer Jean-Francois Lévesque designed the fire in Far Cry 2 to look and behave like real fire. Fire can be used to confuse and/or kill enemies, destroy enemy installations, and create diversions. How do the design goals work with the nature of fire to transcend mere “window dressing” and create an actual “character?” Really, Fire?

7. Fire can be considered a Character: Reacts and interacts with the player Interacts with other NPCs Can effect the outcome of the game Yes, Fire!

8. What aspects of character design does fire share with traditional PCs/NPC Fire as a Character

9. The Fire must looks realistic At one point I became literally obsessed -- I would meticulously analyze every flame I saw, virtual or real, and my fire behavior issues in the game would keep me awake at night trying to solve them. - Jean-Francois Lévesque In order to produce the correct response in the player the fire must act and look correct, or at least to a suitable degree Graphical Design Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20901

10. The AI mus act in a convincing manner or it will be seen as “cartoonish” or unrealistic. This can hurt the ability of the game to produce the desired flow state. Within two minutes, as far as I could see, literally miles of terrain were on fire. Every single tree, every hut, everything. The result was that I had killed every guard by shooting a single round and that my PC was now reduced to a crawling speed. - Jean-Francois Lévesque AI Design Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20901

11. Complexity is dependent on the hardware Graphical complexity Complexity of the physics Behaviors and designs only have to appear realistic. Balance of Utility vs Danger must be appropriate. Questions to ask What does the player expect? How do we want the game to be played? Is the implementation damaging the flow? the fire doesn’t oversimplify every thing. You can't expect to set fire to a camp, sit down, read a book, and expect that every NPC dies. That’s also where clever level design and AI come into play. - Jean-Francois Lévesque AI & Character Balancing Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20901

12. Fire plays on player fears No matter the benefit, fire remains impersonal Can produce unexpected results Additional processing overhead Environmental persistence Potential Weaknesses

13. Character Design Demo: • Super Obama World

14. Obama is “super deformed” and “cute” Super Obama World Character Design Enemies send a specific message about the candidates