Week 10 - Elements of Game Design......Story and Characters

This week is all about characters in games.....

If you think back to characters in films and books, there is often one or few main characters that the story revolves around. Even Lord of the Rings focuses on Frodo and Aragorn more than any other character.

These days, Games with stories seem to have a bigger following then those games without stories. The Legend of Zelda series has had a growing fanbase since the first game came out somtime in the 80's. In this case the main character is Link (the squeaky clean hero), and sub-main characters are Princess Zelda (the damsel in distress princess - and you thought Snow white and Sleeping Beauty were annoying enough) and Gannondorf (the all-evil villian - could possibly be related to Wicked Witch of the West or Darth Vader). And all Zelda games (I think??) have used this template. There have been about 10 sequels and there has been no sign of anyone getting bored of it. I think it is this sort of story that people find irresistable.

But not all games with stories have to follow this pattern. Hitman has a small story in it and you are basically a hitman, who has to assasinate people. But the majority of games revolves around one character e.g. Tommy Vercetti from Grand theft auto, Lara Croft, Super Mario, Max payne, Metroid. Even Final Fantasy games have one main character accompanied with other sub-characters.

I personally like story games that have one main character, especially the Legend of Zelda Series!!!