Hey everyone! I’m new to game development and working on character development for my game. I’m not sure what details I should focus on. Things like birthdays, age, personality traits (introvert vs extrovert), and backstories seem important, but I’m not sure how much detail to go into.
What kind of information do you all usually include when building your characters? Should I add things like favorite foods, hobbies, or fears, or should I stick to the basics like goals and motivations?
Also, how deep should I go with the character’s backstory and personality—does it really help the player connect with the character, or can it be overdone?
If anyone knows of any tools or resources that could help with this, that would be great— for example i use this random birthday generator for finding random birthdays for characters. (example tool, moderator can remove link) thanks in advance!
Does the story need the characters (MC or NPCs) birthdays? If yes, plan those, if no, no need for it.
Especially with what details the player can set about the MC (and sometimes NPCs): Are these things brought up in any way that makes sense? outside of a variable that gives the characters haircolor for example but doesn’t really add anything but a word count?
And really, especially with details about the MC meant for immersion, see what actually adds. which also leads to how are things described: There’s, for example, a difference between MC's cheeks blushed bright pinkregardless of the MCs skincolor, or writing Warmth/embarrassment/etc crept visibly into MC's cheeks
Just as @MeltingPenguins said, include everything that you need for your story. This will help you avoid overwhelming yourself and your readers with too much nonessential information.
For me, these are core details that I consider essential for every story, such as names, personality, motivations, and their role in the story. Then depth details which just adds more flavors for my character so they can actually do something, I have the backstories and relationships, essentially every detail necessary for the character to interact with the world around them.
Other details like appearance, birthdays, favorites, and hobbies are optional for me. Unless I’m bringing them up into the story (such as a birthday scene or something, even then most of the time I don’t need to have an exact date), I don’t include them in my characterization. Although they are not necessary, these details could add more charm into the character.
Though in IF space, I noticed that many people enjoy customizing their player, so it might be a good choice to consider appearance essential in IF text games.
Your characterization should be as deep as your story requires. You don’t need to include every single detail about your character, only add details when a scene calls for them.
Anyways, this is just how I approach my own charactirization for my own stories. Other writers may have their own ways though, and this way is just one way of doing it. Best wishes to your writing.
If you haven’t planned out your plot (you should plan out your plot; quadrupley important for interactive fiction) then focus on these:
STUFF THAT AFFIRMS IDENTITY. Gender, pronouns, sexuality, body type, appearance, and other characteristics.
STUFF THAT IS RIFE FOR DRAMA. Past relationships, formative experiences.
STUFF THAT TIES INTO YOUR UNIQUE SETTING AND GENRE EXPECTATIONS. Dragon tattoos, tech uplink interfaces, ranching experience, doppelgangers, connection the mustical or divine, special fantasy race like the Yonderdwellers or the Gaenwyks or the elves if you’re a coward.
From my point of view, the only essential information is “what am I going to call this character” (doesn’t have to be a name per se, could also be a title or somesuch, I have a story where the MC is literally named only “the Detective”). And if I’m describing anyone’s appearance at all, potentially “how am I going to describe this character’s appearance”. Everything else I’ll decide on when it comes up.
@LiliArch , @will , @Habbie@MeltingPenguins you guys are really helpful. Really feeling satisfied by joining this community. Thanks for helping me, guys.
Not entirely sure if you are asking about characterization for the MC or side characters, but I hope this is at leas a little helpful.
Personally, I like knowing everything about my characters. Much of this information will never be explicitly said, but the more I know about my character’s personality and backstory, the better I can anticipated and/or explain their behavior when they do weird things. Some people find this approach overwhelming, and or unnecessary, but it’s what works best for me.
I think this is enough for minor characters, but I often find that characters who are reduced to their plot motivations come across boring or flat. One thing that can alleviate that is giving them more than one set of goals or motivations that may even contradict each other (this can include the MC by the way). A lot of people have conflicting goals and motivations that come into conflict with each other. This can be a very easy way to create character development for an MC by forcing them to chose between two goals. Or it can be good character development for major NPCs, especially if they have a goal that could put them in conflict with the protagonist.
With MC’s you can leave it a bit vaguer, although there are plenty of games that give MC a set backstory that are still popular. I’ve always felt I connected more to MC’s with set or semi-set backsories than blank slates. But this will depend more on the story your are telling with your game.
For NPC, I would say that you should probably know a great deal about your NPC’s backstories whether or not its actually something the play ever finds out because it will help you solidify the way that NPC acts or what is most important to them, or what could potentially make them act out of character (or seem to).
Basically this. I don’t think, as an author, knowing a character’s favorite food is very important unless it’s going to come up as plot point.
Exactly. If your story takes place over the course of a week, or on a single mission, or during a wild night . . . you don’t need to know birthdays. In fact, most of the time you don’t need to even know precise ages for characters. A general age range to know where they are in life and what experiences they may have had is more than enough.
I say all this of course, while writing a WIP where the player is a kid, a lot of other characters are kids, and a major plot point occurs during a pool party held on the character’s birthday, the anniversary of which becomes important. So, since the player character is in the Northern Hemisphere, and has a pool party on their birthday, I needed to get a good idea of when that birthday occurs - in the summer months, for sure.
But guess what? I still don’t need an exact date, because I’m not tracking days in my story. I’m tracking events and their ramifications. Knowing the birthday is in a certain summer month and the anniversary is approaching is all I need for my story.
I agree. Being a “pantser” is no way to write interactive fiction. By scene, sure, but you need to have a plot outline that is fairly detailed to hang everything on first.
This is an iterative process for me, where I have ideas for characters, then begin plotting, then discover I have need of certain characters, then go back and modify, combine, or flesh out characters as needed. I also operate by your principal of knowing or coming up with character stuff that is good for drama.
The worst thing characters can be is boring, especially as ROs, so the more I refine my plot and the player character’s possible journey, the more I know what to add to characters for maximum drama potential.
Sure, you could just let your player have a secret that would be shocking if an RO found out. But how much more fun if you designed the RO in such a way that the secret wouldn’t just shock the RO, but devastate them for deeply personal reasons in their backstory? And then gradually reveal that ticking time bomb to the player? Then give the player the tools to speed up the countdown or try to defuse the relationship bomb before it blows up in their face?
I’ve always felt more connected to MCs with a set backstory too. My WIP has an MC that, while very customizable, has a very defined and plot important backstory.
This is something I do. I like to plan NPC (especially RO or major NPCs) backstories and personalities to find their “voice”, so I can really write “as them” when writing dialogue and the story.
I don’t know their birthdays, or their favorite foods, or their heights, or where they went to school - but I know the formative events in their life. I know their personal philosophies and outlooks and why those came to be for them. I know what their current goals are and how they are feeling. I know what makes them angry and what they find amusement in.
Those are the important things, IMHO. Not any of that checklist-type stuff.
I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that, while having details about characters isn’t something that needs to be included in the story unless it’s somehow relevant in it, this shouldn’t necessarily lead to conclusion that it’s not something you have to bother with on your end as the writer.
Having a solid idea of the characters, what makes them tick, their strong and weak points, their quirks, preferences and past experiences, etc and so on. All of that helps to have them act in your story as actual, physical people and not just interchangeable vague blobs.
And while things like exact birthdays aren’t perhaps strictly needed, they’re --similar to things like blood type that’s common in Japanese stories-- more of a shortcut that indicates/provides basis for broad personality traits that can help you determine how a given character would act in your story. These can help your reader, if they’re familiar with these concepts, to get a more clear idea of the character, too.
Obviously not, but it’s also not something you must figure out before you start writing (which I assumed the original question was, but I could have understood wrong) - characters can have their personalities formed during the actual writing process, unless you’re insistent on getting everything right at the first draft of your story. It depends on what kind of writer you are.
I wouldn’t say it’s so much about getting everything right at the first draft, but more that if you have those things about characters down, then they can bleed into and influence your writing from the get go.
E.g. if you have a character envisioned as someone who isn’t very physically fit (or the opposite) then this can almost automatically come up as something to make note of and provide extra flavor in the writing in a scene which involves physical effort. While if you don’t have this mental image, often it may not even occur to you to enhance a scene with this sort of detail.
Same goes for the personalities – if you lack good idea of what the character’s personality is, then it’s pretty hard to tell when you’re writing in what situations exactly that personality would manifest itself (and how).
See, that’s why I said that it depends on what kind of writer you are. I take a fresh new character, drop them in a situation, decide how they act in it, and start to build their personality from there. I’d like to think the end result still is distinct characters, even if I do like writing sarcastic ones (but that’d happen regardless of at which point I decide their personalities).
Hmm but then, if i may ask, how do you plan the plot without any real idea what sort of personalities the story will involve? (because, when you get down to it, then the plot is to large extent a result of interactions between personalities) Or is this also something that you don’t plan, but invoke as you go?
That depends. Sometimes I have a vague idea (“there is an alien invasion, a ragtag group of misfits needs to stop it”), sometimes I just… start writing and see where it goes. It can always be edited later to be more coherent, but I also have a knack for improvised thriller plots holding together with foreshadowing without much planning (it’s like a video buffer, I get ideas for a few chapters forward when I write).
you guys are really helpful. Really feeling satisfied by joining this community. Thanks for helping me, guys.
(it’s like a video buffer, I get ideas for a few chapters forward when I write).