Analysis
Annotated Bibliography
1.ISBISTER, K. (2006) Better Game Characters by Design. A psychological Approach. San Francisco, California: Morgan Kaufmann. Source
Designing a game character, it doesn’t mean that all the game characters should react successfully in all media platforms. The game character designers should be very acute on the designing process to create a character which can operate for variety media formats. Also, it is important to transfer your character into different media platforms preserving their quality and depth. Game character developers are always starting with researching a character, building the base of character: recognition, fascination ,even mystery. Character must be a unique persona for the players, having background, goals, needs and motive, and the main objective of the game character designers enabling the character to interact with others.
When game players choose their characters,(avatars),they are paying attention to their appearance, and where the character is going to take them, what journey it is-hard, simple or even fascinating. To convince the game player, the game character should be built on high standards. Sometimes a bad design might lose appeal to the players, and many video games become unsuccessful and fail in the game market.
That’s why the visual design is playing a big role in character development. The game players want to feel their characters, and game characters affect the players’ emotions. Emotional connection between the player and character might be believable and convincing.
The game players can choose their own game characters through their appearance and acting behavior: what sorts of power it has and how the players are feeling when they control them and move them using their keyboard and following the action that is happening on the screen. Also the game players want to see their character more intriguing and powerful, rather than shallow and dull.(279words)
Keywords: game character, intriguing, powerful, unique persona
2.Kristine L. Nowak, Christian Rauh :"The Influence of the Avatar on Online Perceptions of Anthropomorphism, Androgyny, Credibility, Homophily, and Attraction",Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 11, Issue 1, 1 November 2005, Pages 153–178.Source
In this article the author was talking about a serious video game, how the video game character designers achieved the dual goals of entertaining people with special needs and diseases through character modeling and character dialogue.
When game Character designers start to design a character for a serious video game, firstly they might consult with a behaviour scientist and be guided by them, and follow to their five behavioural science concepts:
Game characters or avatars are playing the main role in a serious video game, as they are teaching the players how to reduce risk of obesity and diabetes-promoting them health diet and physical activities, or people with cancer using the character to destroy the bad cells and get treatments. Also through the game characters the players can achieve some goals ,solutions, problem solving, self-monitoring. Observing their avatar with the similar appearance they can “coping style” and change their behaviour :positive or negative.
This type of video game can help the player to modify health behaviour.
A serious video game designer should count out that their players are expecting to have fun and entertaining, and designing the games they might follow all the expert and specialist advice and get balance between seriousness and fun-ness.
Nowak K, and Rauh C point out a vital role of avatar in a serious video game, as it assists the player to choose the avatar’s appearance similar to theirs. (234words)
Keywords: serious video games, character dialogue, character modeling
3.Felix Schröter and Jan-Noël Thon:" Video Game Characters- Theory and Analysis" .Source
The author proposed to distinguish between narration, ludic, social experience, and dimensional parts of video game characters' Eder, Jonnidas and Schneider have tended to consider that the characters in video games are “textual structures” ,” paradigm of traits” , or even “surface feature of discourse", however the cognitive approaches
assume that “characters are the part of imagination in the player's mind”.
Many video games have been designed around character, laying as a” narrative", despite some scientist debate around it until now, mentioning that video game characters can’t be assigned as a narrative, as the character-avatars are just people’s imagination, and it's an equipment, tools that humans are playing for fun and entertaining.
Therefore, in contemporary video games the players can use a variety of strategies in their scene, even they can change the mode `ludic events” while the game is played. It's described as four kinds of game rules: game mechanics, where the player having action within game space, the game goals-how the player can outcomes all the obstacles, the possibilities of interaction-relation between player actions and game actions, and the last rule is the rules of representation -how game play is represented. It is divided into three modes: Mode of narration- where the character is a fictional. The second mode is a simulation, it focuses on the character’s function(shooting, running, hiding),and the last mode of communication-allows self-representation in the social space of the game.
Goffman’s concept of three “frames” talking a game as a ”primary framework", when the players can recognize each other as a video game player and act as an event ,Second frame he called “in light of the conventions of the game”-where the players are governed by the rules and constraints. And the last frame is “narrative frame “keying”-when the players pretend as fictional characters and act out their logic.(306words)
Keywords: avatars, narration, fictional character
4.Jörg Kienzle, Alexandre Denault, and Hans Vangheluwe McGill :"Model-Based Design of Computer-Controlled Game Character Behavior" University, Montreal, QC H3A 2A7, Canada Source
Interest in video/online games has increased drastically in our days. And the demand for realistic games has grown with Non-Player Characters. There are a few advantages of modeling games using AI modeling language.
Many video games, like The Tank Wars demonstrate time-slicing and the event time-management using modeling language.
Recently, the game industry is growing faster and higher than the movie industry. Therefore ,the game developers demand for video games creations increased twice, as their task is to create turn-based games(such as adventure, exploring or role playing) and real-time games(it could be action, real -time strategy game).There are more turn-based games where the player is competing with computer opponent. In this case timing is not important or even critical.
Real-time games are changing continuously, at least 30 frames per second updates. In real-time games, the player can control one character, against a set of computer controlled characters. Typically, these types of games are used by AI algorithms ,which controls the behavior of the character. It’s called NPC-Non Player Character. To design the game character more natural, more real actions and reactions the game developers should achieve their goal, giving an ability to analyze a situation and evaluate different events, and situations .
Game characters might have an ability to observe an obstacle with his eyes and make a decision to turn his position left/right. And that component is the sensor.(232words)
Keywords: non-player characters, AI modeling language, algorithms
5.Christopher Totten, Washington ,D.C,(2012):"Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity,(pp.4-5)Source-TU Blanchardstown Library
The concept of the game art is the process of creating and designing the video game character. When the game character designers are planning characters, first they should produce ideas for their characters backgrounds, tastes, religious beliefs, and include more details telling who they are. The author also points out the important concept not only to design the game character visually engaging but also make them marketable.
Commercial game production isn’t working only with a single programmer as before, but rather by an entire team of professional programmers ,narrative writers ,sound technicians, illustrators, and other creative people. To create a commercial- quality game using 3D art ,the game designers needs to have some knowledge of visual art, animation, creative narrative writing, sound/audio design and programming/coding/script abilities.
The most challenging portion of game development is creating good characters.
The best way to start designing your 3d character is a Blender. It’s an ideal platform for creating game assets, then transforming to the Unity game engine for your own video game design. Unity software has been nominated Technology Innovation Award in 2010.The Unity game engine has a few features, that making it as the best software ,more user-friendly-WYSIWYG-”what you see is what you get” and drag-and-drop features.
One of the important aspects of character development is a model sheet. When the game designers use a model sheet, that will help them to save a lot of work and frustration.
(242words)
Keywords: Unity, Blender, model sheet, commercial game
Many game players first of all are focused on the interesting game characters, and to develop it, the players might get under the skin of characters for better understanding their ambitions, fears, sorrows and motivations. All these strategies can help the player to get closer to the character through interactive emotions.
In some games the player characters might focus on supporting the character and the effect of this type of games are able to integrate the player. When the player supports his character, it gives progressives' power of narrative.
Some video games are focused on the fictional characters role and on social interaction through an avatar, and making their choices from that character’s perspectives.
Many game players will recruit non-player characters and bring the companions out on missions. In the video games some of the companions are playing a role of pivotal characters emphasizing the depth and development of the narrative. Therefore, the role of the companions in the games are more important for narrative progression than the player characters.
Sheldion’s approach to character roles in the game demonstrates the empathy between the players and characters building the emotional bond. To create a powerful narrative effect, the players might establish empathy with companions in both games. The game characters should have an interesting and deep background full of uniqueness, emotions and originality. To make the companions more interesting and deep, it should be indicated in their attitudes and behaviour, that make them original and unique.(243words)
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