Here’s an interesting activity – have a think and list some of your favourite characters from computer games that you have played. Does your list include characters like Guybrush, Gordon Freeman, Link, Lara Croft and Mario?
Mine doesn’t. Not really. In fact, I don’t really find player characters that interesting at all. When I begin to think about my favourite characters, I always find myself thinking of NPCs, or Non Player Characters. Those are those often less important characters scattered throughout games who are often over looked.
Adventure games had hilarious characters like Herman Toothrot that never failed to win my heart over. First person shooters (some of them, anyhow) had enemies who have little conversations that I hear while I’m hiding behind a crate to jump out and shoot them, which I love. This isn’t just guard #1382 with no purpose other than to shoot me and be shot by me, this guy has communication problems with his wife and his clueless buddy is giving him funny advice.
Role playing games – particularly those like Planescape: Torment and Baldur’s Gate - had dozens of characters that I found absolutely hilarious. Why the hell would I want to play as some boring old spawn of some boring old psychopathic deity when I meet an insane cleric who thinks that his zombie minions are his relatives and spends his time recalling all the funny times they’ve had? I wanna play as that guy!
When I go back and play these games, it makes me think about my own games and wish that my NPCs were better written. Ok, so I like them (particularly the 3 in Shoot!), but I feel that they could be done even better. I’m going to go back and have a look at the NPCs in my current projects, and see if they can’t be made just that little bit more memorable (as well as the player characters, of course).
2 comments:
I am a great NPC enthusiast as well, so there is not much to add, only one thing to argue:
As much as I like NPCs with detailed backgrounds and definite character traits, I wouldn't want to play one of them. In my opinion, this would limit the possibility to relate to the main character. A well told background story on the one hand makes it easier to understand a main character and emphathize with him. If all the consequences of this background story are already drawn, however, it narrows down identification very much.
The main character can possibly be a traumatized Vietnam veteran whose his wife ran off with a vacuum cleaner salesman while he was away fighting for the just cause. Whether he now reacts hypersensitive and overly cautious on his one last mission to save his best friend Biff from the Indonesian djungle, or just kicks ass, chews bubblegum and blows them all away should be up to the player, I guess.
Also, if all the features of a character are already very definite, there is no room for character development - which sadly is a feature most computer games lack completely.
I understand where you are coming from, but perhaps what I am meaning to say is that I wish more interesting things were presented as choices to a player. I'd like to have the *choice* to do these crazy things.
Games that present themselves as "non linear" claim that they give the player more choice, but I'm not really as interested in more choices of where I can take the player character so much as how interesting I can make those choices.
Perhaps when I go into the jungle to save Biff I want to have a more interesting path available to me than just overly cautious or raging charges. Wouldn't it be kinda neat if they said "You can either save Biff by raising an army of beetles and learning to control the hive mind or you can save Biff by mutating into a clawed man-moth who attacks from the dark"? I know I'd want to go back and replay that game, just to try the other crazy choice!
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