Week 10: Game Play and development

As human I believe that we are all inclined to enjoy a good story whether listening or even telling a story of our own. Therefore it is almost a fundamental rule in gameplay to have an engaging storyline with characters that we find interesting and appealing.
Most if not all successful story driven games achieve such success due to character development and engaging the player. Gaming is falling alongside other storytelling media such as films and books. We sometimes have to look at a game as an interactive book.
An example which I personally think is worth having a look at is Fahrenheit designed by David Cage. It is a almost a new genre, a movie-game. Although it is far from achieving the look of a movie it certainly does invoke a new sense of gameplay as the player has an almost psychical experience as a lot of the game requires intense use of the controller.

It also features three primary characters with a twist. One is a murderer and the other two are cops so the player is trying to catch himself and yet also escape. Although it’s far from a perfect game I do believe that is on the right track when it comes to create a new way to perceive and play games.

When it comes to characters, if I can remember a game character 20 years on from now then I believe it to be highly successful however it’s not all down to the games. It’s a clever business practice to market a popular game character via a blockbuster movie (Tomb Raider), TV series (Sonic the Hedgehog), MacDonald's toys (Mario) and plush toys(Pokemon). In a way to reach the target audience the easiest way is to flood every avenue open to them to ensure that the market will see as much of the product as possible.

However it’s not all about business is it? When it comes down to storyline and characters the genre most looked at would be RPG’s such as Final fantasy etc. When so many hours is placed in a game it’s hard not to remember a character. Too many times have I came across a game when the main protagonist has had no appeal that when something good comes along chances are you’ll remember it.

When trying to sell a game that relies heavily on character development and storyline - you must create a hybrid of a book, movie and game and balance all aspects. Character development is crucial, if the game starts out with an happy,easy going protagonist then after seeing his town blow up , girlfriend die and dog runaway, and if he remains the same person completely unaffected by the events I would wonder what the hell was going on. It’s important to anchor characters with humanity as I don’t want to play a game where I can’t relate to a character in one way or another, that would make for a really boring and therefore unsuccessful game.