Creating the Characters Behind the Game

A well-rounded character will have three dimensions: physical, sociological, and psychological. These dimensions are needed for all major characters, whether they are the player character, or significant non-player characters.

The Physical Character:

The physical dimension of a character is the easiest to show to players, especially in visual media such as video games. This dimension is all about how the character's look reflect their personality. But this alone does not make a well-rounded character: we need to include the other dimensions as well.

The Sociological Character:

This dimension includes a characters past, their upbringing and their environment, both local and cultural. If a character has a past, then their actions have a reason, rather than being tacked on for the sake of it. The environment aspect includes both where the character grew up, and where they are now. It is very easy to get carried away with a character's backstory, and end up with a huge list of unimportant details. The backstory should only serve to provide relevant information that helps to mold the character.

The Psychological Character:

For a player to bond with a character, they need to know as much as they can about that character. The trick is for the player to get to know the character, without the character explaining everything themselves. As Sheldon advises, characters who explain themselves are not only boring, but not true-to-life. Very few people know everything about themselves, even the most self-centered people. If a character is well-written, then they won't have to explain themselves - they are revealed by what they choose to do.

It is often very enjoyable to an audience to know more than the characters know. Watching a character do something that they do not realise is detrimental to their situation can be amusing, or nail-bitingly awkward. Either way it will evoke that extra level of emotion from the audience or player.

It is best to reveal a character's psychological dimension in a moment of crisis. It is easier for a character to keep their cool when everything is going well, but the mask tends to get stripped away when they are under pressure.



Character Progression:

Good stories will have their major characters change as the story progresses. This can be in the form of growth, or development, which are both different aspects.

Growth:

Character growth describes the changes that occur to a character as they progress through the story. Growth helps to portray a fully developed character, but also serves to assist in the storytelling. To have character growth, we must first be aware of where the character is, psychologically, at the start of the story. Sheldon says that if a character begins triumphant we'll have to tear him down, and that if he starts in the gutter, it will be a lot easier to enjoy the road he takes to the throne.

Development:

Development is less about change, and more about unveiling information. Information may be revealed to the player, that the character will never know.



The Pivotal Character:

A pivotal character is one that sets the story in motion: they create conflict and make the story move forward. The pivotal character can be either the protagonist or the antagonist. Many RPGs begin with an evil force already at work, and the player character then reacts to the resulting crisis. If they are neither the protagonist or the antagonist, then the story must still have a pivotal character. Sometimes the sidekick is the pivotal character. A good pivotal character must have something very vital at stake. In Jak & Daxter the sidekick, Daxter, is the one that sets the story in motion. Jak's journey is the search to help Daxter regain his original physical form, after being transformed into a rodent.

The Player-Character:

The player character, while the hardest to keep entertaining, is arguably the most important character in a game story. The player character is the most complex character in the story: the player will learn more about them than any other character. The player character is normally a direct link between the player and the game, and how he interacts with the game world reveals much about his nature and the nature of the game.

When creating characters for a video game, writers must ask several questions that writers of other media don't have to face.

Is the player character meant only to be controlled by the player, or is it meant to be the player?

In most games the player character is kept distinctly separate from the player, and serves as the player's puppet. Sometimes, the player becomes the lead character in the game, most often in games where the point of view is first person. The intention behind allowing players to play themselves in a game, is to add a greater level of immersion. In earlier text adventures, referring to the player as "you" helped the reality of the worlds. Most games today however, feature player characters that are distinct from players. This is for several reasons, which Sheldon lists:

• Computer games are happiest as a visual medium, and text is usually suffered only as a necessity.
• We have a tradition of empathising with characters in other visual media such as film, television, and live drama.
• Games today are attempting more sophisticated storytelling. We see this even in the development of the Myst games where the first is nothing more than the unraveling of a backstory, and the later sequels feature ongoing story in which the player character becomes actively involved.

It is now accepted that a greater immersion is actually possible if the player character is not a representation of the player. This is because we can empathise with well drawn fictional characters; because players recognise the significance that these made-up protagonists play in a story; and because with them it is far easier to involve a player in the fictional narrative.

Is the player character original, or based on a character from another medium?

While adapting a character from another medium sees a lot of the work being already done for you, it does create new work. The characters actions have to remain true to the original character at all times, or the character will feel false to the player. With this in mind, the gameplay must keep the character in mind: a game as open-ended as Grand Theft Auto wouldn't fit a character like James Bond, because he is not likely to want to gun down innocent citizens.

How much does the player know about about the character?

From an early stage, the write must decide how much of the player character's innermost thoughts are shared with the player. The writer must then decide how fleshed out the character should be. Villains are generally more fun to write, but we want the player to identify with the protagonist most. If a player character is too fully drawn, then the player may have trouble identifying with them, because they may differ too much from the player (speech, attitude, ethics, favourite sports, etc).

The writer must then keep the knowledge between the player and the player character balanced. In a film it can be beneficial for the viewer to know more than the protagonists, but in a game it can ruin the immersion if the player has too much knowledge. Sheldon insists "never, ever, ever consider amnesia as a means to keep the knowledge shared by the player character and the player consistent. It's such a cliché that to call it a cliché is a cliché." This seems like sounds advice, because there are plenty of alternatives to deal with sharing knowledge between the player and player character.

One way to balance the knowledge is to make sure that surprises in the story are surprises to both the player and the player character. To effectively maintain the fictional reality of the character, try to avoid setting up puzzles and tasks where the player character would know what to do, but the player themselves has to learn from scratch.

How much does the character know about the player?

Some player characters do what is known as "breaking the fourth wall". This is where the character acknowledges the existence of the audience or player. One example is the real time strategy game Warcraft: if you click on a character repeatedly you'll get a normal in-game response. However, if you click on a character too many times without issuing an actually order, then they tend to get angry and yell at you. This breaks the fourth wall in a humorous fashion, but also serves to help get the player back on track.

If the player character needs certain skills, does the player need to have them too?

A single game will often feature many types of gameplay. Shooters feature adventure-game-like puzzles. Role-playing games can require the hand-eye coordination of an FPS. However, simulations are one type of gameplay that doesn't travel so well. As Sheldon says, Nothing breaks a player's willing suspension of disbelief more than when they are required to be a master marksman, but must work like crazy to hit the broad side of a barn.

Similarly, if an RPG aimed at a large audience requires a high level of FPS skill to be successful in combat, this also creates a dilemma. RPG players are less likely to have honed the reflexes needed to be skilled swordsmen, or to "chain" a number of keystrokes to trigger special combat moves.

If the player can control more than one character, how does this affect the NPCs and storytelling? 

Non-player characters serve to populate the game world, and move the story along. They also provide a focus for the player's emotion, when the death of the player character is likely to evoke frustration more than sadness. The death of an army won't usually affect the player much more than being annoyed at having to restart the level, but the death of one of the player character's companions can be a potent source for much deeper emotion.

A lot of players don't want to read walls of writing, and some players will spam the ESC key at the slightest hint of text. A common solution is to provide NPCs. The more NPCs you have, the more digestible pieces you can break your story into.

While major characters are essential to the story, minor characters are also very important. They serve to add to the verisimilitude of the setting. Minor characters don't need anywhere as much detail as the major characters do, but they still often have crucial, albeit sometimes brief, roles to play in the game. If they aren't necessarily needed for the story, they can still be useful to the player (merchants, quest givers, etc).

We don't always have the luxury of being able to flesh out our characters in long descriptive paragraphs, like a novelist does, but when it comes to sketching our characters vividly, we still have quite a few tools at our disposal:

• Recognisable character types or personalities, such as the talkative salesman, the flirty barmaid, or the tough assassin, etc. The problem is that these personalities can very easily turn into stereotypes. We need to give the characters some kind of twist to keep them unique, such as a serving wench actually being very prim and proper.
• Professions that can quickly tell the player, from previous experience, what role they are expected to play: librarian, policeman, ticket clerk, etc.
• Physical Mannerisms. Does the character twitch? Do they shy away from people? Do they reach for a weapon?
• Turns of phrase or accents. If someone insists they are trustworthy they probably aren't.
• Clothes. A beggar will not be the ideal person to ask for a loan. A scantily clad woman is probably not the best person to bring home to meet the family.
• Distinct attitudes and opinions. A few short phrases sprinkled throughout the conversation. "Yup, the mayor has a mule for sale, but count yer change. He's a politician."

Not all extras talk, but they are equally important as ones that do. A city street is normally busy in the daytime, so if the streets were empty it would be hard to justify designing the city in that way. That's why a lot of games are set in abandoned/post apocalyptic environments, as it's easier than creating more extras. In computer games, extras tend to have one line that they repeat, which brushes off the player (either politely or impolitely), and informs them that they have nothing to offer that will further the story or enhance gameplay.

Avoiding Stereotypes:

The list of stereotypes is an extremely long one - Sheldon lists quite a few of the well known ones: "Square-jawed heroes, hook-nosed villains, gravity-defying big-breasted women, wise-cracking cowardly sidekicks, wily thieves, scheming clerics, wise bearded magicians, old crone-like witches, stubborn dwarves, grass-chewing rustics..." I'm going to endeavour to avoid as many of these as possible when creating the story for my style guide.

There are many reasons why even good writers may fall prey to the allure of stereotyping:

• They might not realise they are stereotyping. It takes time and experience to observe and absorb knowledge, and we never know when a bit of seemingly useless information will prove valuable.
• Stereotypes are easy to write, because the work has already been done for us.
• We may justify their inclusion by citing time constraints. Deadlines make it very tempting to cut corners and convince ourselves we will go back and fill in the gaps later.
• Stereotypes are often confused with archetypes.
• Some types of games, like RPGs, rely on them for player character creation. Players want to play the stealthy rogue, the benevolent cleric, the elven archer. Since these characters are developed very mechanically on purpose, they should occupy a special exception to the rule. The largest problem with the game in this case may not lie with stereotyped characters at all, but the stereotypical setting you want them to live in.

Creating the Story Behind the Game

I need to design the basis of a game on which to focus the art style guide. After delving into my initial idea further, it became apparent that evoking emotion in a player takes more than just a pretty environment; it also requires well thought-out characters and story. Once I have got the colour, composition, camera angles, etc to a good standard, then I will most likely use the characters in the game to add that extra level of emotion. I think that a style guide can still be good without that extra depth, but I want to include it if I can, to give it that little bit more.

I will need to create characters that the player can empathise with, and care about. But characters alone are not enough. They must be part of stories. In Character Development and Storytelling for Games, Lee Sheldon says that stories without due attention paid to characters were unlikely to touch the reader. This is very important to my artefact, as the whole point is to create something that can provoke emotions from the player.

When I have decided on the story behind the artefact, I will pick two smaller sections of it to focus on. Ideally the two sections will be contrasting to each other, evoking different emotions. This will serve to show that I am not just a one trick pony. I am currently leaning towards using the same location for the two sections, to further emphasise the contrast between those parts of the story.

Sheldon also states that the player will accept just about anything if the experience is entertaining. It is not the first time I have heard this said, and it has proven to be pretty sound advice.

Game Types:

I am almost certain that I want to go down the RPG route (Role-Playing Game), because this game type tends to be more influenced by story than other game types.

Game Genres: 

The genre is a more open decision. The well known genres are Fantasy (Elves, dwarves, magic etc), Science Fiction, War, Espionage, Crime, Mystery, Horror, Historical/Period Drama, and Western. RPG games are very often set in fantasy or science fiction worlds, but I want to attempt to create something that is at least slightly more original. I will have to put a bit more time into picking a genre, so I will make a separate blog post for that at a later date.

Linear and Non Linear Storytelling:

After weighing up the benefits between linear and non linear storytelling, I've decided that the "python" approach that Sheldon describes is probably the most favourable in this instance. In this method, the player has freedom of movement, but is still forced through an overall linear storyline.

The narrow sections are called chokepoints, and can be locked doors, collapsing bridges, guards, a boat that has run out of fuel, and so on.

Characters:

As far as the playable characters go, it will be best to stick to the actions of a single playable character, as this suits story-based games best. I will start designing characters for the game in a separate post, once I have settled on the genre.

Avoiding Clichés:

Stories are built on characters. Sheldon warns that if you build a story on stereotypes, then you will more than likely end up with clichés. Stereotypes tend to speak in clichés, make clichéd decisions, and act in clichéd ways. The best way to avoid clichés is to learn as much as we can about literature, drama and film, so that we can better recognise clichés.

Reviewing my Dissertation Proposal

Now that I've got my mark back for my dissertation proposal, I need to read the feedback, and clear up any uncertainties that the teachers may have about my dissertation.

Timeline:

At the moment, the timeline is set out in a very basic manner. As I decide on the theme and story setting, I should be able to make the timeline more focused.

The Form of the Style Guide:

I think that the style guide will be best suited to a digital form, as it will be much easier to show to employers that way. I would like to have at least one physical copy though, time and printing budget allowing! I want to use the dissertation to practise my Photoshop and digital painting skills, but I would still like to create some pencil drawings. If I still create a digital style guide, then I can scan the pencil drawings, but keep the physical copies to put in my portfolio.

Size and Scale:

I haven't narrowed down the specifics of the section of gameplay/story that I will be focusing on yet. The last few weeks I have been focusing my blog posts on researching story techniques, such as the Hero's Journey. This is to help me decide what section of a story would be best to focus on. In the next few weeks I expect to decide on a basic story idea, and then start to focus on one section of it.

The Hero's Journey: 12 of 12 - The Return with the Reward

Now the story is over, and the hero returns to his ordinary world to resume life as normal. The player gets to see the hero enjoy the benefits of the reward, and the story is over. This is the last stage in the circular story form. The story returns completely to its starting point so that comparisons can be drawn between the hero before and after.

However, a neatly tied-up story is not always desirable. Sometimes it is nice to leave a few questions open. One of the most popular forms of ending for a story is the “new beginning.” In this type of ending, the story continues in the imagination of the player long after the game is completed. The player is left asking, “What happens next?” and the way is left open for a continuation or sequel.

The Hero's Journey: 11 of 12 - The Resurrection

The resurrection is the point in the story at which all outstanding plot threads are resolved. Any problems or consequences from the retrieval of the reward are (for the most part) resolved here. Does the story resolve itself? Are there any questions left unanswered? Is this an oversight on the part of the designer, or are they deliberately left open for the sequel?

The resurrection is the final set of tests the hero faces before being able to enjoy the hard-earned reward fully. In conventional stories, the is comparable to the last-minute plot twist: Just when you think the story is over and the hero has won, the enemy resurfaces briefly for a final stand before dying.

Another purpose of the resurrection is so that the player can see clearly how the hero has evolved throughout the story. Has the hero changed? More importantly, does the hero have the answer to the question posed by the story?

The resurrection might also be in the form of an internal revelation for the character that the player might not have foreseen – a trick ending: “No Luke, I am your father.”

The Hero's Journey: 10 of 12 - The Road Back

With the reward won, the hero now has to prepare for the journey back to the ordinary world. The experience of the adventure will have changed the hero, and it might be difficult (if not impossible) to integrate successfully back into the ordinary world. Most games leave this part to a final cut scene.

The Hero's Journey: 9 of 12 - The Reward

After the ultimate shadow is defeated, the reward can be claimed. The reward can come in many forms – and not all of them are positive. Sometimes the reward can be a negative option, something the hero would rather avoid but cannot, or simply was not, expecting.

The reward is more often than not, a positive one, even if it might not seem that way to the player. For example, for a hero that has endured a long and painful cycle of continual death and rebirth, the ability to finally die and join his lover in the peace of eternal sleep is an ideal boon.

Many games end at this point. Some of these show the remaining story as a final cut scene. For other games, this is merely the beginning of the final phase.

The reward doesn't have to be the same one that the hero set out for at the beginning of the story. The important thing is to make sure that the reward reflects the effort expended in reaching it. Nothing falls flat more than an insignificant reward.

The Hero's Journey: 8 of 12 - The Ordeal

The ordeal is the ultimate test: the fight with the nemesis. This is the culminating battle of the story. Until now, the hero might have dealt with some serious tests, but this is the real thing. The stakes are high, and the final reward is at hand.

During the ordeal, you might try to cement the player's bond with the hero further. This is sometimes achieved by making it appear as if the hero is almost defeated, before fighting back from seemingly impossible odds to defeat the enemy.

In the ordeal, the hero faces the ultimate shadow. Defeat means failure, final and absolute. Victory means claiming the reward and ultimate success. However, sometimes achieving victory is possible in many ways and at many levels, not all of them immediately obvious. For example, in some cases it could mean deciding whether to fight the ultimate nemesis.

The Hero's Journey: 7 of 12 - The Approach to the Innermost Cave

After the succession of tests, the hero hero approaches the innermost cave. This is the core of the story, where the hero will find the reward he seeks. Mostly this is toward the end of the game, but sometimes it occurs almost exactly in the middle.

When the reward is at the end of the game, the journey back is ignored. The retrieval of the reward is the high point of the journey, and the return is assumed. This is useful when you don't want the player to have to double back on themselves.

When the reward is close to the middle of the game, the focus is on the journey back – retrieving the reward is only half of the story. The hero still needs to get himself and the reward back to the ordinary world. The journey back should be well integrated into the game, and should be significantly different to the outward journey.

The traditional use for this story element is to help prepare the hero for the ordeal ahead. This is done by a number of means, including doing reconnaissance, gathering information, checking or purchasing equipment, or mentally preparing and girding loins for the coming tasks.

The Hero's Journey: 6 of 12 - Tests, Allies, and Enemies

Crossing the threshold was the hero's first test. This next phase is often the longest phase of a game story and makes up the bulk of the game, and involves throwing many more similar tests at the hero.

In this phase, the hero ventures forth into the special world and meets many of the character archetypes on the journey. The vast majority of character archetypes in games tend towards allies, shadows, or tricksters. If a player is alone against an alien onslaught, then a hero is surrounded by shadows. Games that are slightly more complex will often provide allies, that serve to give the hero a brief respite between series of tests against progressively more powerful shadows. They exist to replenish the hero's spirit and resolve. In some cases, tricksters and shape-shifter archetypes will take the form of false allies, who turn out to be shadows after all.

More complex games will use many more character archetypes in this phase of the game, and use them repeatedly, and in varying combinations.

The main purpose of this phase is to test and prepare the hero for the grand ordeal that lies ahead. The hero needs to get accustomed to the unfamiliar new world. During the increasingly difficult tests, the hero will forge alliances and make enemies. Sometimes opportunities to make new allies or enemies will be limited, or predestined. Often, the majority of characters that the hero meets are already enemies, and there are few allies.

The Hero's Journey: 5 of 12 - Crossing the First Threshold

Once the hero accepts the call to adventure, they need to commit to the adventure, by crossing the threshold from the safety of the ordinary world into the dangerous and strange world of the quest ahead. This is not always an optional step. For example, if the hero awakes in a strange place with amnesia they will be forced into the adventure against their will.

The hero must mentally prepare themselves for the adventure ahead, before they cross the threshold. The hero will often have fears and concerns, but will begin the adventure despite them. This is a good time to bond the player with the hero by creating a sense of concern for them. The threshold guardian archetype often comes into play here. This could be manifested as the hero's own misgivings, the fear of the hero's companions, a warning from the enemy who the hero seeks to defeat, or any combination of these.

When the first threshold of adventure is crossed, there is no turning back. The next phase is entered, and the adventure into the special world truly begins.

The Hero's Journey: 4 of 12 - The Meeting with the Mentor

If the call to adventure is seen as the catalyst to the story, then the meeting with the mentor serves to give direction, and create an impulse and motive where previously there were none.

The mentor does not always have to be a single character. The cliché is that the mentor is a wise old man, but it doesn't have to always be the case! The mentor doesn't have to even be a character – it can take the form of a past experience, a library, television, or any other source of information. It is not important who or what fills the role of mentor, as long as the information the hero needs is provided.

The Hero's Journey: 3 of 12 - The Refusal of the Call

The refusal of the call is where the hero rejects the call to adventure. This can be on a small scale, such as a moment of personal doubt, or a brief rebellious outburst on the part of the hero. Generally in computer games there is no refusal of the call, especially when there is only one call. The refusal of the call is usually reserved for games that place more of an emphasis on story.

If multiple quests and subquests are offered, then the game has to allow for multiple refusals. As long as the main quest is taken care of, some of the smaller quests can be ignored without any serious penalty. If the hero is given two or more calls that conflict simultaneously, then it automatically creates dramatic tension. A well-known example is the choice between good or evil. The player's actions determine which call has been refused.

In some cases, the refusal of the call can be seen as a good thing, if the quest involves undertaking actions that would result in unpleasant consequences, such as killing innocent people.

The Hero's Journey: 2 of 12 - The Call to Adventure

The call to adventure is when the hero first becomes aware that they are going to need to leave the safety and stability of the ordinary world to enter the special world of the adventure ahead.

It is very hard to surprise the players, as they already know that they are going to be entering a special world. Therefore, it is often best to use this expectation to build up the player's anticipation and excitement. This suspense needs to be short-lived however, as player's want to play a game, not sit around and wait to play it.

The call to adventure comes in many forms. It is often the catalyst or trigger that sets the storyline in motion. In some stories, there are multiple calls to adventure, and the player must decide how to prioritise them, and which to ignore completely.

The call to adventure can often be personal to the hero themselves, and can involve family or friends being in peril. However in some cases, an external event is the call, such as a large scale grand event.

Temptation can also be used as a call. Generally, games use greed as the main source of temptation. Using sexual temptation tends to result in poor games that are often very distasteful. Greed is a much safer angle to take.

Sometimes the call comes in the form of a message from a herald. The herald does not necessarily have to be an ally of the hero, and can reappear as other character archetypes later, such as the mentor or the shadow.

Sometimes the call to adventure can be less explicit. This can be the result of an emotional void, or lack of knowledge on the part of the hero. The call to adventure is also not always optional for the hero – a player can choose whether to play or not, but the hero isn't necessarily given a choice.

The Hero's Journey: 1 of 12 - The Ordinary World

The beginning of the story. The hero's background is introduced, and the player becomes acquainted with the hero's normal existence.

This serves to provide a contrast with the not-so-mundane world that the hero will enter in the game. The introduction to the ordinary world often uses a prologue. This normally comes in two forms:

• Explains the events that have happened to the hero so far, setting up the context for what is about to happen.
• Provides a snippet of the special world, either by covering past events in the special world that are about to collide with the hero in the ordinary world or by foreshadowing an event to come.

The hero's backstory ideally shouldn't be shown all at once. It is best to reveal their background and motivations gracefully. It is more rewarding for the player if they have to work a bit to figure it out, as the player feels like they have achieved something in uncovering the story.

Foreshadowing is a powerful storytelling technique and therefore, unsurprisingly, is a common occurrence in stories. For example, in Half-Life, when the dimensional rift opens, Gordon gets a glimpse of strange alien landscapes and beings. This serves as a taste of things to come, and one which is unbeknownst to Gordon at the time.

Bosses in games often appear briefly throughout a level, before the big boss fight actually happens. Foreshadowing is so effective because it contrasts the special world against the ordinary world. This confuses the player, which makes the player more susceptible to mental suggestion, which in turn makes it easier for the player to suspend disbelief.

The “Ordinary World” section of the story is where the motivation and reasoning behind the hero being who they are can be introduced. This section is where the hero is introduced to the player. It is crucial that the player can identify with the hero, or the player has no reason to play the game. There are many ways to get the player to identify with the hero, but playing on the player's emotions is perhaps the most effective way to do it. In classical literature, the reader can often empathise with the hero through their flaws, or mental or physical wounds, even if they are not extreme enough to get them admitted to an asylum. A hero's inexperience in a new job is something fairly normal, but something that players can easily identify with.

Planning the Theme, Storyline and Setting: Storytelling and Narrative

My blog posts slowed a bit, as I was busy with my proposal, but now that's been handed in, so it's time to get stuck into some more research!

Computer games will generally have a story attached to them, of varying depth. Some games, such as Space Invaders, may only have a one-liner to explain the story: "Aliens are invading Earth, and only you can stop them." In these types of games, the story is largely unimportant, as the story has no effect on the gameplay itself; the player's imagination takes care of any narrative needs. On the other end of the spectrum, adventure games such as Grim Fandango and Discworld Noir have engaging storylines that are as complex and meticulous as any novel.

In Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (2003), Rollings and Adams state that "The use of stories in games is a fundamental part of game design." and that the vast majority of games "are much improved by the addition of a story".

While my dissertation will require me to decide on a storyline for my game, to give it context, I will not go into great detail with it, as creating a full story will take far too long to be part of a dissertation, especially when the story itself is not the main focus of the dissertation. The aim is to pick a section of the story to create the style guide for. The best place to start, is by researching a story pattern called the Hero's Journey.

The Hero's Journey is a pattern that can arguably be observed in many narratives. This pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). The steps in the Hero's Journey are as follows:

• The ordinary world.
• The call to adventure.
• The refusal of the call.
• The meeting with the mentor.
• Crossing the first threshold.
• Tests, allies, and enemies.
• The approach to the innermost cave.
• The ordeal.
• The reward.
• The road back.
• The resurrection.
• The return with the reward.

In some cases, some of the steps would add nothing to the game, so are glossed over. For example, sometimes the player actually wants to be a hero that is ready for anything, so the refusal of the call would not be appropriate. Games don't always have to conform to reality, as long as the game itself is consistent.

In my next blog posts I will explain the steps of the Hero's Journey in more detail.

Dissertation Proposal: First Draft

Proposed Dissertation Title:

Investigating the emotive power of visual cues, and using this knowledge to create a style guide for a game.

  

Brief Outline of work:

For my dissertation I will be investigating the power of visual cues, which will culminate in the production of a style guide for my final artefact. This dissertation will focus on what work goes into deciding what a game looks like: colour, composition, lighting, perspective, etc.

Refer to my blog post for more information on what a style guide contains: http://giselleczajka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/planning-my-dissertation-what-is-style.html.

I will be making a style guide for a small section of a game, as it would be nigh on impossible for one person to make a style guide for a complete game in one year. I will be picking one scene, or one 15-20 minute section of the game to focus on.

The aim of the dissertation is to be able to produce a style guide that will convey the required aesthetic/mood in detail, so that a game artist would be able to create consistent artwork from the style guide. I will most likely make two smaller style guides, which show a change in aesthetic and mood – so for example a town in prosperity, and then the same town in turmoil later in the game. This will make it easier to show the contrast between different moods and aesthetics.

After delving into this idea further, it became apparent that evoking emotion in a player takes more than just a pretty environment; it also requires well thought-out characters and story. Once I have got the colour, composition, camera angles, etc to a good standard, then I will most likely use the characters in the game to add that extra level of emotion. I think that a style guide can still be good without that extra depth, but I want to include it if I can, to give it that little bit more.

Rationale:

Personal:

I don’t enjoy 3D modelling, and my skills at programming are too basic for me to want to risk basing an entire dissertation around it. I have decided to base my dissertation around art, as I really enjoy drawing, but I still have plenty to learn. My drawing skills have got rusty over the past few years, so the dissertation module is the perfect opportunity to brush up on my art skills, and develop them further.

Refer to my blog post for more detail on my personal reasons for choosing this type of dissertation: http://giselleczajka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/planning-my-dissertation-deciding-on.html.

Work Related:

I looked into what roles are generally in the games industry. The specific roles that interest me are as follows:

• Art Director // Lead Artist – once I have enough experience, I would like to work up to a lead role in this area.
• Creative Director // Lead Designer – this is again something I would like to consider once I have the required experience.
• Concept Artist
• Designer (Systems Designer, UI Designer, Level Designer)
• Writer

Writer is the least important role to me on this list, so will most likely not be a focus in this dissertation, but is still something I am interested in.

Lead artists need the same skills as roles like concept artists, but also need years of experience, which won’t be feasible for a student trying to get into the games industry. I will aim for the lower roles to start with, with the intention to work my way up the ladder to a lead role later in my career.

Looking at example jobs, the following skills are often required for jobs as concept artists:

• Drawing and painting skills, both in traditional and digital mediums
• Understanding of lighting, colour theory, composition, perspective, anatomy, etc
• Self-motivation

I already have some drawing skills, but the dissertation will improve these further, and also give me skills in digital art, such as the use of Photoshop. The style guide itself won’t technically need drawing skill, but the research I undertake will involve lots of drawing, to test colour theory, composition, etc, as the best way to learn is to try out lots of different ideas. This will then also cover the second bullet point listed above. The ability to be self-motivated will definitely be shown in the dissertation as well, as we are expected to be autonomous learners.

Refer to my blog for more information on roles in the industry, desired skills that a game designer will possess, and examples of jobs in the industry:

• http://giselleczajka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/planning-my-dissertation-roles-in.html
• http://giselleczajka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/planning-my-dissertation-skills-needed.html
• http://giselleczajka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/planning-my-dissertation-what-jobs-are.html

Academic:

Over many years, humans have learnt to express ideas through written word, and to convey emotion through music and art. Awareness of emotions has always played a big part in our survival; fear tells us when we should run, and contentment tells us when we are safe and nourished. Reacting to emotions is vital, and sight plays arguably the biggest role in extracting emotional cues from our environment.

A cross-looking person may inspire feelings of fear or discomfort, while seeing someone that looks happy may evoke feelings of happiness or calm in the onlooker. Cognitive science suggests that visual art can stimulate emotions in the viewer by taking advantage of emotional cues we've learned to interpret over the millennia. A picture of someone with a steely, harsh expression should inspire a sense of fear or unease in the average viewer, whereas a picture of a child might produce happier feelings.

Some studies do support this observation. In a functional MRI study, Kawabata and Zeki (2003) found that beautiful pictures stimulated the regions of the brain that are associated with emotion. In some instances the use of colour and symbolism can also evoke an emotional response. For instance, the colour red is often associated with danger, or anger. In the same way, chaotic lines can make the viewer experience feelings of discomfort and disorder.

These emotion-stimulating visuals; smiling children, angry faces, the colour red, and lines in disarray, are known as cognitive antecedents. Artists can use them to store an emotional state, to be experienced by the viewer later on. The emotions that art can invoke aren't always planned deliberately - they can be different for each individual. For example, in Japan the colour white is associated with death, so may invoke feelings of sadness in a Japanese viewer.

This is something I would really like to investigate further, in relation to video games. It will also help me to develop relevant skills for jobs in the games industry (see the work related section, above).

Annotated Bibliography:

Main research:

The following are directly related to my dissertation.

Books:

Don Seegmiller (2003). Digital Character Design and Painting. USA: Charles River Media.

This book covers how to merge character design and digital painting. While this book covers general drawing techniques, it also covers colour theory, lighting, etc. It talks about creating characters that elicit specific emotions from viewers, which is directly relevant to my dissertation.

Les Pardew (2005). Beginning Illustration and Storyboarding for Games. Boston: Thomson Course Technology.

This book is dedicated to learning how to create storyboards and concept art. Nearly every chapter in this book will be of use.

Phil Metzger (2007). The Art of Perspective. Ohio: North Light Books.

This book is about learning how perspective works, which is exactly what I need for my research, as perspective is one of the important skills that I will need to be proficient in.

Tom Bancroft (2012). Character Mentor. Oxford: Elsevier.

This book shows how to use expressions, poses, and staging to bring a character to life. It also talks about using angle and composition to create character-driven scenes, or story-driven scenes, which relates directly to creating a style guide, as a style guide is all about how the scene has been laid out.

Websites:

Jesse Schell. (2013). Nobody Wants to Read Your Design. Available: http://www.slideshare.net/jesseschell/nobody-wants-to-read-your-design. Last accessed 19th October 2013

This article talks about how artists will want a design document (in my case a style guide, which is an art design document) that is more visual than textual.

Liberated Pixel Cup Styleguide. Available: http://lpc.opengameart.org/static/lpc-style-guide/styleguide.html. Last accessed 14th October 2013.

+

Margrave: The Blacksmith’s Daughter Early Storyboard. Available: http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/margrave-the-blacksmiths-daughter-early-storyboard/. Last accessed 14th October 2013

+

Sony. The Look and Feel of Planetside 2. Available: https://www.planetside2.com/player-studio/style-guide. Last accessed 14th October 2013.

+

Valve. DOTA 2 Character Art Guide. Available: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf. Last accessed 14th October 2013.

+

Valve. DOTA 2 Character Color Texture Guide. Available: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterTextureGuide.pdf. Last accessed 14th October 2013.

+

Valve. DOTA 2 Character Shader Masks Guide. Available: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf. Last accessed 14th October 2013.

These are examples of style guides. They will be very useful as a reference.

Research related to deciding on the narrative context, location, function(s), etc:

The following will help me give some narrative context to my style guide.

Books:

Andrew Rollings & Ernest Adams (2003). Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design. USA: New Riders Publishing.

This is the book that I used when researching skills that a game designer requires (p18-26). It is a general game design book, but I am particularly interested in Chapter 3: Game Settings and Worlds, Chapter 4: Storytelling and Narrative, and Chapter 6: Creating the User Experience (this chapter talks about the visual element of the user experience).

Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten (2007). The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design. New York: Lone Eagle Publishing Company.

This book will be useful in deciding on the narrative context, location, function(s), etc behind the style guide.

Heather Maxwell Chandler & Rafael Chandler (2011). Fundamentals of Game Development. London: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

This is the book that I used when researching roles in the game industry (Chapter 3). It is a general game design book, but I am particularly interested in Chapter 8: Characters, Setting, and Story.

Lee Sheldon (2004). Character Development and Storytelling for Games. Boston: Thomson Course Technology.

This book will be useful in deciding on the narrative context, location, function(s), etc behind the style guide.

Steve Ince (2006). Writing for Video Games. London: A & C Black Publishers Limited.

This book will be useful in deciding on the narrative context, location, function(s), etc behind the style guide.

Research related to drawing skills:

The following, while not necessarily related directly to my dissertation, are focused on improving my general drawing skills.

Books:

Derek Lea (2009). Creative Photoshop CS4. Oxford: Elsevier.

This book covers how to use Photoshop CS4. Photoshop is one of the well-known pieces of software for creating digital art, so this book will be very useful.

Ettore Maiotti (1993). The Drawing Handbook. Italy: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri.

This book teaches the principles of pencil drawing.

Haitao Su & Vincent Zhao (2011). Alive Character Design. United Kingdom: Cypi Press.

This book talks about how to draw characters, and bring them to life.

Hazel Harrison (1999). Drawing with Pencils & Pastels. London: Lorenz Books.

This book teaches the principles of pencil drawing, and drawing with pastels.

John Torreano (2007). Drawing by Seeing. London: Lawrence King Publishing.

This book teaches the principles of drawing, with illustrated examples of what techniques improve drawing, such as perceived overlap.

Project Timeline and Milestone Deliverables:

To begin with, I will do as much research as possible on the relevant subjects, through books, articles, etc. This is already in progress now. I will then start defining some goals, and start experimenting with aspects: testing colours, composition, and so on.

WEEK 12 (16^th-20^th Dec): By Christmas I will have decided on the details of the style guide: aesthetic/mood/tone etc, narrative context, location, function(s) of the scene, the players, NPCs. This may change throughout the project, but I will at least have a focus for my starting point, so that I can start on the actual artefact itself.

WEEK 13 (20^th-24^th Jan): By the new year I will have made all the preparations, and be ready to really drill down into the topics. I will have the knowledge to really be able to make informed decisions on aspects of the style guide, from my research and experiments. I will make a first pass on the narrative structure, and collate reference materials for the theme and mood, then I can start really building my style guide.

WEEK 20 (10^th-14^th Mar): By March I will endeavour to have a complete first pass of my style guide, so that I have time to revise and polish it.

Research: Visual Art and Emotion

Over many years, humans have learnt to express ideas through written word, and to convey emotion through music and art. Awareness of emotions has always played a big part in our survival; fear tells us when we should run, and contentment tells us when we are safe and nourished. Reacting to emotions is vital, and sight plays arguably the biggest role in extracting emotional cues from our environment.

A cross-looking person may inspire feelings of fear or discomfort, while seeing someone that looks happy may evoke feelings of happiness or calm in the onlooker. Cognitive science suggests that visual art can stimulate emotions in the viewer by taking advantage of emotional cues we've learned to interpret over the millennia. A picture of someone with a steely, harsh expression should inspire a sense of fear or unease in the average viewer, whereas a picture of a child might produce happier feelings.

Some studies do support this observation. In a functional MRI study, Kawabata and Zeki (2003) found that beautiful pictures stimulated the regions of the brain that are associated with emotion. In some instances the use of colour and symbolism can also evoke an emotional response. For instance, the colour red is often associated with danger, or anger. In the same way, chaotic lines can make the viewer experience feelings of discomfort and disorder.

These emotion-stimulating visuals; smiling children, angry faces, the colour red, and lines in disarray, are known as cognitive antecedents. Artists can use them to store an emotional state, to be experienced by the viewer later on. The emotions that art can invoke aren't always planned deliberately - they can be different for each individual. For example, in Japan the colour white is associated with death, so may invoke feelings of sadness in a Japanese viewer.

Planning my dissertation: Planning the Scope of the Art Style Guide

Some game worlds are so expansive, that making a style guide for the entire game world would take an enormous amount of skill and time. Seeing as a dissertation is a solo project, I almost certainly won't have time to make a style guide for a complete game in just one year. 

My teacher mentioned that on large-scale projects, style guides are sometimes created on a per race, or per city/town/level basis. Making an art style guide for a small section of a game would be far more achievable than trying to complete an entire art style guide.

I will need to create a basic storyline and premise for a game, to give the style guide some context. I will then pick a small section of the storyline, and effectively act as the design lead for that segment. So I might pick a specific location in the game that the main character will visit, or pick a 20 minute section of the game. If the main character encounters a new race there, I may also devote a small section of the style guide to that race as well. My style guide will most likely include storyboards, as this is a good way to emphasise some visual aspects, such as camera angles.

My style guide will lean towards being more visual, rather than including pages and pages of text, because I've been told that artists don't much care for reading! Pictures and diagrams are also far easier to comprehend than a wall of text. (See: Nobody Wants to Read Your Design, by Jesse Schell: http://www.slideshare.net/jesseschell/nobody-wants-to-read-your-design).

Planning my Dissertation: What Jobs are Actually out There?

If my artefact is aimed at helping me get a job, I need to make sure the jobs that it is focusing on actually exist! My artefact will essentially be concept art, so lets first look at what concept artists actually do.

Bon Expose defines concept art as "a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product."

Before the production of a game commences, companies will often require a large amount of artwork to be created. Concept artists will use sketches and speed paints to provide a broad range of interpretations, to help realise the artistic vision of the game. Concept art has matured along with the games industry, with digital software such as Photoshop being more readily available, enabling more efficient working methods.

Now, what kind of jobs are out there for concept artists?

This is an example of a job advert that I found, for a concept artist:

Concept Artist

Black Rock Studio is currently looking for a Concept Artist to join the team at the Brighton-based studio. The studio, best known for award-winning titles such as the MotoGP series on Xbox 360 and PC and the multi-million selling ATV Offroad Fury 3 & 4, is now developing new-gen original IP racing games and looking for talented and passionate racing game enthusiasts to join the teams on these innovative Xbox 360 & PS3 projects.

The Role:

The Black Rock team are looking for highly motivated, talented and creative individuals with honed fine art skills and the ability to illustrate concepts quickly. As a concept artist you will be part of a vibrant and passionate team creating environments through sketches, storyboards and full colour artwork.

Key Responsibilities:
As part of a wider conceptual art team you will be expected to deliver industry leading look and feel pieces in order to help define and drive forwards the look development and vision for the studios new and exciting IP.

Education / Qualifications:
A Bachelor degree in fine arts, architecture, or film. Various degrees of education and experience will be considered provided the applicant's portfolio demonstrates the following requirements:

A versatile and exceptional 2D portfolio.
Excellent drawing and painting skills in traditional mediums and or digital illustrations.
Exceptional and proven understanding of lighting, colour theory and composition.
Excellent fundamental art skills.
Experience in production creating environment ‘Look and Feel’ concepts.
Demonstration of a concept’s evolution from rough sketches through to final full colour illustrated ‘Look and feel’.
Any experience of working with storyboards would also be a distinct advantage.The ability to convey atmosphere and mood through light and colour.

Key Skills / Experience / Essential Requirements:

Strong desire to work on environmental concepts.
Willing to work closely in a cross discipline collaborative and creative team environment
Creativity, motivation, enthusiasm, flexibility, adaptability.
A firm grasp of colour theory, lighting and composition is a must coupled with a drive and a passion for your art.
A true passion for video games.
Knowledge of multiple art styles and techniques, able to draw inspiration from a wide range of traditional artists. .
Versatility to work everything from environments through to characters, and in any genre / style is an advantage.Up-to-date knowledge of computer illustration software packages, e.g., Photoshop and/or Painter.
Familiarity or experience with 3D programs and 2D vector-based art applications is a plus.
Ability to create a large volume of high quality concept art within short time frames.

The skills highlighted in green are the ones that I feel I already have a good grip on.

The skills highlighted in yellow are the ones that I have some experience in from before university, but skills that my dissertation will help to improve further.

The skills highlighted in orange are the ones that my dissertation will also help with, but are very new to me at present.

Looking through several job adverts, the skills that tended to be requested frequently, were:

- skills in digital media, i.e. photoshop

- understanding of light, colour theory, composition, perspective, anatomy etc.

- self-motivated

These are all things that my dissertation will give me plenty of experience in. 

Planning my Dissertation: What is a Style Guide?

Before planning out a style guide of my own, I need to investigate what actually goes into a style guide, and what purpose it serves.

In his online article, "Video game style guides are extremely useful", David Colson says that he acknowledges three main types of design document:

• the game design document, which outlines the gameplay.
• the technical design document, which outlines technology to be used, game engines, graphics techniques, and so on.
• the art style guide, something that is commonly associated with web design and graphic design.

Colson argues that the art style guide is just as important in video games. When a game is in pre-production, a vast quantity of concept art is usually required. A style guide is a way for concept artists to consolidate their vision of the game in one place, so that other members of the design team know exactly what they are working towards.

A style guide serves as an "art bible" to the game artists, so they know what colours to use, what art style to use, and what overall aesthetic is trying to be achieved. The aim of a style guide is to provide consistency throughout the whole project, which will result in a more attractive game.

Refer to the following for examples of what a style guide may look like:

• Margrave: The Blacksmith’s Daughter Early Storyboard:
  http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/margrave-the-blacksmiths-daughter-early-storyboard/
• Liberated Pixel Cup Styleguide: http://lpc.opengameart.org/static/lpc-style-guide/styleguide.html 
• DOTA 2 Character Art Guide: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf
• DOTA 2 Character Color Texture Guide: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterTextureGuide.pdf
• The Look and Style of Planetside 2: https://www.planetside2.com/player-studio/style-guide

Planning my dissertation: Deciding on the Focus, and the Final Artefact

After deciding that I wanted to base my dissertation about something artwork-related, I needed to actually hone in on what I wanted to study, and what I wanted to produce as a final artefact.

I have always been fascinated by what I see in life - the world around me is always filled with so many different colours, shapes and sizes. I think that part of this comes from my artistic side, that I inherited from my father, but I also think that part of it comes from my eyesight (or lack of!).

From a young age I've had to rely on glasses to see anything that's more than a few inches past my own nose. To make this easy to visualise, for those of you with better eyesight, this is pretty close to what the world looks like to me, with my natural vision:

obtained from:
http://www.coachrobertsimmons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/637_blurred_vision.jpg

My eyesight is blurred to the point that I can't tell that objects in front of me even exist - the whole world is just one big blur. So when I do wear my glasses, it makes everything around me look... well... amazing! It's like stepping out of a bubble, into a completely different world. I want to take in everything I see, all the colours, and shapes around me.

Clear Vision by InfuzedMedia, on deviantart.com

Continuing along that trail of thought, I want my dissertation to be about what players SEE in the world around them, and how this can effect how they feel when playing a game. Some sights will affect players in a way that they are aware of (scary monsters and such), but there are many different things that add to the immersion of a game, without the player necessarily being conscious of them (like colour). Many small design considerations all come together to produce the overall feel of the game.

One of my teachers gave me lots of advice over the summer, and gave me lots to think about. One of his suggestions was to create a style guide for a game - I think this would be a great final artefact, and would be one that would also allow me to get my drawing fix. I would have plenty of things to research, and that research would hopefully culminate in a well-thought-out concept document/style guide.

The next step is to get stuck in and do some research! I also need to decide on a clearly defined set of goals, for the teachers to be able to mark my work properly at the end of the year.

Planning my dissertation: Skills Needed to be a Game Designer

A good game designer will require a large range of skills, and although some of them may come naturally to the designer, most skills can be learned. Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (2003) lists many of the skills that a game designer should possess if they want to be successful in the games industry.

Anatomy of a Game Designer:

Imagination:

A game exists in an artificial universe, a make-believe place governed by make-believe rules. Imagination is essential to creating this place. Fortunately, this is not a problem for most people. Even if you feel that your imagination isn't your strongest point, it's possible to develop and improve it. Of course, this isn't a new concept. It's been around for hundreds of years .

The imagination is like a muscle; with regular exercise, it grows stronger and easier to flex. Imagination comes in various forms:

• Visual and Auditory imagination enables you to think of new buildings, trees, animals, creatures, clothing, and people – how they sound and their strange ways of speaking.
• Dramatic imagination is required for the development of good characters, plots, scenes, motivation, emotions, climaxes and outcomes.
• Conceptual imagination is about relationships between ideas, their interactions and dependencies.
• Lateral thinking is the process of looking for alternative answers, taking an unexpected route to solve a problem.

Nor does imagination consist only of the ability to think of things that are completely new. It's also valuable to be able to look at an old idea and apply a new spin to it, to breathe new life into it with a fresh approach. Too many people in the game industry see something old and familiar and dismiss it. Instead they should think, “How can this be made better? How might this be more interesting

Technical Awareness:

Technical awareness is a general understanding of how computer programs, particularly games, actually work. It isn't necessary to be a software engineer, but it is extremely valuable to have had a little experience programming, even if only in Blitz Basic (www.blitzbasic.com) or some other simple language. A computer game designer's delivery medium is the computer, so it behooves you to know how computers do what they do and also to have a general idea of what they're not good at doing. A designer with entirely unrealistic expectations of what a computer can do isn't going to get very far. For example, computers do not understand English well. If your game design requires that the machine be able to interpret complex sentences typed on the keyboard, your programmers are likely to throw things at you.

You must also have a basic knowledge of the technical capabilities of your target platform. At a minimum, you need to know whether you're designing a product for a home console, desktop computer, handheld platform, or more than one of these. Every feature that you specify must be possible on the machine that you're designing for. If in doubt, ask the programmers. Knowing the limitations imposed by the selected platform will result in an achievable design.

Analytical Competence:

No game design is perfect from the start. Game design is a process of iterative refinement, which progresses from a rough draft to the finished meisterwerk. Consequently, you must be able to recognise the good and the bad parts of a design for what they are. This requires a keen logical and analytical mind, and the ability to manipulate nebulous concepts with a high level of mental agility and critical analysis.

It is very difficult to effectively criticise your own work. You can be excessively hard on yourself and become convinced that all your work is worthless, or you can be blinded by familiarity and unable to analyse your own work in an unbiased fashion. Inexperienced designers often err in both directions, swinging wildly from one to another.

There is no easy solution to these problems. Good self-analysis skills come with practise. As a reality check, you can try peer reviews (which are always a good idea anyway). See what your colleagues and co-workers think of your design. Try to choose people who are likely to give you an unbiased opinion. Friends and family are usually not good choices. They will be either too easy on you – after all, they are close to you personally – or too hard on you because they don't want to be seen as biased and, consequently, overcompensate.

A specific example of when analytical skills are particularly useful is in detecting dominant (that is, unbeatable, or nearly unbeatable) strategies at the design phase and weeding them out before they get into the code, as in the infamous Red Alert “tank rush”. The tank effectiveness in Red Alert was so out of balance that an experienced player could dedicate all production to cranking out a few tanks and then immediately storm the opposition base before the enemy had a chance to get a production line set up.

Mathematical Competence:

Designers must have basic math skills (particularly statistical math skills) because balancing a game is largely a matter of math and can be a difficult task. In the case of a real-time strategy game or a war game, the apparently simple problem of ensuring that there are no dominant strategies or fighting units to unbalance the game is actually quite math-intensive.

Aesthetic Competence:

Although you need not be an artist, you should have a general aesthetic competence and some sense of style. Far too many games are visual clones of one another, depending on stereotypes and clichés rather than real imagination. It's up to you (along with your lead artist) to set the visual tone of the game and to create a consistent, harmonious look.

Suppose you're designing a clever and calculating female assassin with nerves of steel. Many designers would clothe her in skin-tight black leather and give her a big, shiny automatic pistol; in other words they'd opt for the stereotype, the easy way out. A slightly more imaginative designer might give her a miniskirt and a crossbow – still male-fantasy material, but marginally more interesting. A really good designer would realise that an assassin needs to blend into her surroundings, to look like anybody else, yet still be visually identifiable to the player. He would think about her personality and create a unique visual style for her that is distinctive yet unobtrusive. Lara Croft is a good example of this kind of thing. Despite her ludicrous proportions, she's dressed appropriately but quite identifiably for her role as an explorer: shorts, tank top, hiking boots. More important, her shirt is a particular colour that nobody else in the Tomb Raider games wears, which makes her stand out on the screen. If you're seeing that colour, you're seeing Lara.

General Knowledge:

Some of the best game designers tend to be ex-programmers or people with at least some formal scientific training – as long as they have broadened their sphere of knowledge outside of their narrow field of specialist expertise. A base level of general knowledge is valuable for a game designer, as is the ability to research what you might not know. It helps to be well-versed in mathematics, logic, history, literature, art, science, and current affairs. The more source material a game designer can assimilate, the better the final game design will be.

Make sure you watch a lot of movies and documentaries. Read books, too, both for direct research and background material. The encyclopedia is a good place to start for any given subject. However, a game that is too true-to-life (and hence, is likely to require specialist knowledge) will disappoint its players. For example, if you're designing a game based on piracy on the high seas, then exact historical detail isn't going to be what they expect – a game based on venereal disease, scurvy, maggot-infested food that has to be eaten in the dark so the crew can't see what they're eating, starvation, brutality, and the “consequences” of dark and lonely nights on a female-free boat won't make a particularly interesting (or even tasteful) game.

On the other hand, if you have a game design featuring colourful, eye-patch wearing, wooden-legged pirates, gold, running deck battles, the Black Spot, the Jolly Roger, and buried doubloons secreted away on remote desert islands, then you probably have the seed of an entertaining game.

Writing Skills:

The professional game designer must have good writing skills. This means being clear, concise, accurate, unambiguous, and, above all, readable. Apart from having to write several detailed documents for each design, you might be expected to produce the story narrative or dialogue – especially if the budget won't stretch to a scriptwriter.

Writing comes in several forms, and we briefly discuss some of these here:

• Technical writing is the process of documenting the design in preparation for development. All possible questions on the game have to be answered unambiguously and precisely. For example, if a farm with on peasant produces one unit of food per week, does a farm with five peasants produce five units, or do the additional peasants consume additional food? Is the peasants' own food factored in? What is the maximum number of peasants that can work on a given farm? If all the peasants are killed in a raid, what happens to the farm? If it is not immediately destroyed, can the empty buildings be reoccupied by new peasants? How do farms get built anyway? Where do peasants come from anyway? At what rate? Does the player have to manage the farming process, or do the peasants just get on with it? Can peasants fight? And so on and so on.
• Fiction writing (narrative) is useful for the manual, background material; character descriptions; introductory, transitional, and finale material; as well as other bodies of text, such as mission briefings.
• Dialogue writing (drama) is needed for audio voiceovers and cinematic material. Unfortunately, in most games the dialogue is even cornier than 1970s television shows, and the acting is as bad or worse. Try to avoid clichés, and use grammar and vocabulary that match each character's personality. If you have an ear for regional dialects, it can add real variety to your game, but again, avoid stereotypes such as “dumb rednecks” or “brassy New Yorkers.” The game Starcraft made excellent use of the subtle variety of southern American dialects, including proud aristocrats, gruff old generals, obnoxious bikers, and cheerful mechanics.

The greatest game design acumen in the world will be useless to you unless you can effectively communicate your ideas. As a designer, you will often need to evangelise your design at several different levels. In the professional setting, you will initially need to present your design to a publisher. Following that, you need to obtain buy-in from the team that will develop the game. This can be done in person or in writing, but the result is the same. You will need to be able to transmit your enthusiasm for the game as well as go into mind-boggling detail of its finer points to allow the development team to be able to create a game from your vision.

Drawing Skills:

Some skill at basic drawing and sketching is highly valuable, although not absolutely required for a designer if you have a concept artist to work with. The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is never more true than when you are trying to impart a game idea. The vast majority of computer games rely heavily on visual content, and drawings are essential when pitching a product to a third party. Game-publishing executives will be interested in a hot concept, a hot market, or a hot license, but only pictures get them excited. The images are the hook on which the executives will hang everything else that they hear. Otherwise, you can talk about concepts forever and they won't remember a thing when you leave the room because they don't have a visual hook to hang it on. The images will remain in their memories long after they forget the details.

The Ability to Compromise:

Probably the most important skill for a professional game designer is the ability to compromise on details and integrate a variety of opinions while preserving a consistent, holistic version of the game. In an ideal world, we would be able to design whatever suited us and never have to worry about the demands of a publisher or the interests of the customers. Unfortunately, these external needs and interests do have to be considered, and, more often than not, the game designer is constrained by genre or license.

Different people on the development team and at the publishing company will have concerns about their own areas of expertise (programming, art, music, and so on), and their opinions will pull and push the design in different directions. As the designer, it's tempting to seek sole ownership of the vision, to argue that things must be exactly as you imagined them and to ignore other considerations. After all, there are plenty of other voices in your company advancing points of view about other areas. But you must resist the temptation to do that, for two reasons:

• First, you must allow your team some ownership of the vision as well, or its members won't have any motivation or enthusiasm for the project. No one builds computer games solely for the money; we're all here so that we can contribute creatively.
• Second, a designer who gets a reputation as a visionary but who can't deliver a buildable, marketable game doesn't stay employed for long. It's your job to deliver an integrated design.

In many cases, you'll be given a brief that limits you to designing a genre clone or a heavily restricted licensed property. Being able to work within these limits to the satisfaction of the customer, whether your customer is the publisher, license holder, or end user, is essential. Unless you are one of the famous game designers who can guarantee success with your name alone, you are unlikely to be given a completely free rein. You may have designed the best text adventure game since Colossal Cave, but if the style of game is out of favour with the public, you're probably not going to get your game made – let alone published.

Ideally the hypothetical “perfect game designer” would possess all of the above skills, but the following are the specific skills which I would like to focus on for the dissertation module:

Imagination
Drawing Skills
Aesthetic Competence
The Ability to Compromise
Analytical Competence
Writing Skills (especially fiction writing and dialogue writing)