Week 4 was all about character design. We learned about what makes up a unique and original character and basic rules on how to design them.
Characters give players a reason to learn about the world.
Common Character Arcs:
– Protagonist
– Deuteragonist (You / The Player)
– Antagonist
My game would be focused around the psychology of Theodore Horton, a fictional serial killer who lived in the 1930s. While he would be the antagonist, the protagonist, who lives in the present and is also the deuteragonist, would be the player.
In week 4, our guest speaker Jake gave us a thorough lecture on character design. Among the things we learned were:
– start with simple shapes
– characters come from observations of real-world people
– archetypes: protagonist/villain
– do not explain everything about the character, let the player find out about it
At the end of the lecture we were given a task of creating a character concept based on what we had learned. Here is what I designed.
I don’t usually draw characters in cartoonish style so I treated this exercise more like an experiment on a different art style. I decided to base the next task (shown below) we had to do on this character.
Following the advice of starting with simple shapes, we made one more concept in the form of a paper collage. I wanted to achieve an effect of a big, muscular man, however, I made the head too large and the body looks smaller compared to it.
