History of the article:
A long time ago, I was offered a teaching position at a computer game development school. What kind of teacher would I be? A teacher isn’t someone who simply dispenses a wealth of knowledge, like a mental porter with a trove of case studies. A teacher should be able to convey information beautifully and tastefully, leading by example and inspiring students. But that’s the ideal. In practice, you’re simply forced to recite what others have created for you—it’s excruciatingly boring, for both teacher and student. Better yet, be a textbook writer.
Long story short, I declined. But while I was pondering it, I managed to partially write the article they wanted, on a clearly defined and in-demand topic. The article still seems like an unfinished, half-finished product to me, but perhaps it will find its audience. I’m posting it here with some minor updates.
1. The importance of the game character
In most computer games, the player’s primary focus is on one specific point—the protagonist. This character is the player’s personification, their avatar in the virtual world. Through them, we interact with the game world; in their role, we experience a small, separate life.
Main characters are absent only in strategy genres, where we control far more objects. Heroes may also be absent from minigames. In all other cases, games cannot function without a central character.
Naturally, the special position of a hero character requires greater investment from developers. While some game objects are encountered only once or flash before our eyes from time to time, we see our game character constantly (albeit usually from behind). Any inaccuracy in appearance, any error in the protagonist’s behavior, will be immediately noticeable to the player. Therefore, among game designers of various genres, the greatest responsibility lies with character creators.
2. Classification of game characters
Despite the boundless imagination of game designers, all game characters can be divided into just four large groups: humanoid, animal-like, mechanical, and abstract.
No matter how talented artists are, they can only depict what they’ve already seen in the real world: people, animals, lines, and shapes. Imagination lies in the skillful reshuffling of accumulated information. It’s impossible to invent something completely new. Even if we draw an inanimate robot, it will resemble a person or an animal, or some specific part of one. Even if we take as our hero an inanimate object, a plant, or a disembodied spirit, it will still have to be at least somewhat humanized, otherwise it won’t be able to move and follow the player’s commands.
Let’s take a closer look at the character categories.
Humanoid . Our consciousness is designed in such a way that we perceive other people most easily, if forced to choose from all other objects in the surrounding world. When looking at any painting, we first notice human silhouettes. When seeing another person’s face, our brain focuses all its attention on it, scanning all facial features, dozens of times more thoroughly than all other surrounding objects. These are scientifically proven facts. These are instincts ingrained in us by nature; they are impossible to get rid of, so we can only adapt to them and use them correctly to our advantage.
We experience the world through our human body. Essentially, all the information we receive is internal signals from the body, generated by external stimuli. We see only what our eyes show us; we feel only what our skin conveys. It’s no wonder that since ancient times, humans have tried to explain the entire world through their bodies: instead of physical laws, they invented myths about the origin of the world, as the birth of a being; instead of natural phenomena, they saw the will of humanoid gods. Even today, we continue to humanize everything we encounter: we can criticize furniture we accidentally bump into, even though it can’t apologize to us; we can address communication devices as if they were individuals; we can use purely human verbs to describe inanimate objects. When inventing various aliens and extraterrestrials, we are essentially drawing on the same people, only with slight differences.
Now do you understand how important the human body is to life? So, a human character in the lead role is the most natural and common choice in games. But it’s also the most challenging to create. To portray a human correctly, you need a thorough understanding of anatomy. Any distortion of the body is felt by the player, even on a subconscious level. Distortions are allowed in the depiction if they are intentional and prominent (disproportionately large heads, long limbs, overly expressive facial features). However, distortions that don’t serve a stylistic purpose will definitely be considered artistic errors.
Animal-like . Animal-like characters are a bit simpler. The human mind doesn’t have the same clear templates for animal body structure as it does for humans. A poorly drawn animal won’t repulse us in the same way as an unnatural human body. Moreover, many city dwellers are unfamiliar with the animal kingdom. An artist drawing animal-like characters is completely free. They can depict any combination of body parts, and players will accept it all as natural.
But despite all this freedom, we don’t see a striking diversity of creatures in games. Most often, animal heroes are humanized, placing them on the border between the first and second groups of our classification. It’s very rare to see animals as protagonists, either in their natural form or altered beyond recognition. Typically, such characters are used only for enemy and neutral monsters. Heroic characters always strive to make them more human-like.
Mechanical . The hero is a construct, a robot, a piece of military equipment, or a car. Again, such a hero is constructed according to the already stated rules: they are either humanoid or beast-like. Humans want to see themselves everywhere, so they build robots, usually resembling humans, although this is not the most optimal form for mechanisms. And when building vehicles, they are usually imbued with animal imagery: tanks resemble bulky rhinoceroses, trucks resemble powerful buffalo and oxen, airplanes resemble flying birds, helicopters resemble nimble dragonflies, and sports cars resemble jaguars, cheetahs, horses, gazelles, and other high-speed animals.
Mechanical heroes are easier to draw; everything about them is clear and unchanging; unlike animals, they are motionless, don’t pulsate, and don’t breathe. However, they lack versatility—mechanical heroes can only be used in certain settings (future, steampunk) and genres (simulation, racing, combat, strategy).
Abstract . These are characters such as moving squares, circles, triangles, sticks, blobs of energy, animated objects, and incomprehensible shapes. It would seem that these are products of pure fantasy, completely unrelated to nature. In fact, they are exactly the same borrowings from the environment, only not as whole creatures, but as their component parts.
There are games where abstract characters are conceived from the start, for example: the round creature in Pac-Man, the moving stick that bounces the ball in Arkanoid, or the round bacteria in Agar.io. But in most cases, abstract characters serve merely as cheap substitutes for humanoid heroes, for example: the square piece of meat in Super Meat Boy behaves like a person, not a square; the chess pieces are representations of combat units, not carved pieces of wood in their own right.
By using abstractions as substitutes, the developer doesn’t need to spend money on drawings and complex, expensive animations; simply drawing a geometric figure is enough, and players will recognize by its behavior that it’s a person, not something inanimate. This works well for experimental indie games, but in higher-quality projects, it’s more reliable to use humanoid characters.
3. Revealing characters, distinctive features
Having examined all types of characters, we saw that humanness is a pervasive phenomenon. No matter what a hero looks like on the outside, on the inside, they are almost always human.
But the mere presence of a humanoid hero doesn’t guarantee any bonuses for a game. Most low-quality indie games don’t stick in our memories, even after we’ve spent dozens of hours with them. The problem is that people don’t remember the hero themselves, as a physical object or representative of their species; they remember either their personality or a striking external image.
Personality, individuality
To make a hero memorable, you need to make them unique: imbue them with personality traits, a character, a behavior pattern, and develop motivation. This can only be achieved through specific in-game events.
– You can write, tell, or visually demonstrate the hero’s backstory.
Through short cutscenes, you can show how the character behaves in various situations, their actions, emotions, and thoughts. This will be their character, a consequence of their ingrained personal worldview.
– By having several characters, you can show their relationships, thereby clearly showing their place in society, albeit on a small scale.
All these tools are available only to screenwriters. They are responsible for creating deeply developed characters.
External bright image
But to understand a character’s personality, you don’t necessarily need to follow their every action or experience their entire life. Good artists can convey a character’s core personality traits through their appearance alone.
– Depiction of character traits through body proportions, face, facial expressions, and looks.
– Conveying the character’s profession and lifestyle through his clothing.
– Motion Capture technology as a way to transfer the personality of a real person to a character.
4. The most famous game characters
To better understand what players want to see in front of them, you can familiarize yourself with characters that have already gained immense popularity among the gaming audience.
Appearance
Popular characters are unique and memorable. Their appearance is simple and straightforward. There are small details, but just enough to make them easy to remember.
A counter-example: characters from little-known games, covered from head to toe in various decorations. There are so many details that the player’s attention is distracted, and ultimately, they can’t remember the character’s overall appearance.
A separate topic: attractive female characters. Partial nudity, luscious curves, and enticing glances of female characters have long been brazenly used to attract male audiences. But this isn’t as ideal as one might think. It only attracts initial attention. The downside of eroticism is that men’s attention is focused solely on the curves, and subsequently they can’t remember either the face or the entire character. If there’s nothing interesting about the female characters and the game itself other than nudity, the player will perceive it as deception and abandon the project. They will either not remember a single character from the game at all or will only remember the final feeling of disappointment.
Good examples of the use of eroticism: tight-fitting costumes of the heroines from Overwatch, unique outfits of female characters in the fighting games Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, various big-budget Japanese games like Bayonetta and Nier Automata.
And various MMORPGs where all the heroines are clad in elegant armored bras don’t receive significant popularity boosts, despite being actively advertised online. New players are constantly hooked by such advertising, but the game itself is dull and monotonous, with no depth or character development. It’s impossible to get used to such heroines or develop sympathy for them. Therefore, normal players leave the game as quickly as they entered.
Characters
Saccharinely kind and cartoonishly evil characters are initially more relatable; even children can relate to them, as their behavior is formulaic and requires no further explanation. But over the long term, characters with more complex personalities gain greater popularity.
Characters with various mental disabilities have become very popular lately (the psycho from Far Cry 3, Trevor from GTA 5, the Joker from Batman Arkhem). Their behavior is unconventional, breaking established patterns, and this makes them seem more vibrant than those around them. This exaggerated portrayal of personality is already better than the standard “good-or-evil” roles, but they still have a long way to go to reach the depths of theatrical drama, where characters are fully revealed.
The most famous game characters. Examples:
| Humanoids: | Mario. Prince of Persia. Zelda. Lara Croft. Elizabeth. The Witcher. |
| Beast-like: | Sonic the Hedgehog. Crash Bandicoot. |
| Mechanical: | Car. Tank. Helicopter. Mechs. Transformers. |
| Abstract: | Arkanoid stick. Pacman. Super meet fight. Wisp. |
5. Evolution of game characters
Computer processing power is constantly growing, and with it, so too are the demands on computer game graphics. Game characters are becoming increasingly detailed year after year (though low-poly models are still in demand). Developers are finding it increasingly difficult to make do with their own resources, meaning the demand for professional artists will only increase.
