FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

Clothing, Weapons, Symbolic Objects, and Names

When designing ordinary human beings, body shape is only the beginning. In the real world, we have only a limited ability to change our bodies, so instead we express our personal style through things that we hang on the outsides of our bodies: clothing and accessories. In a video game, the player can more easily see who is who—especially important in situations requiring snap decisions, like a shooter game—if characters' clothing and props uniquely identify them. Indiana Jones wears a certain hat and khaki clothes, and he carries a bullwhip. Darth Vader's flowing black cape, forbidding helmet, and even the sound of his breathing instantly set him apart from everyone else in the Star Wars universe. Crucial for avatars, this rule applies to a lesser extent to minor characters.

A character's choice of weapons tells a lot about him, too. On the one hand, a meat cleaver or an axe is a tool repurposed for use as a weapon, so it suggests crude and bloody, violence. On the other hand, a rapier's thin elegance suggests a dueling aris­tocrat. Indiana Jones can use his bullwhip to get himself out of all kinds of scrapes; it's a symbol of his resourcefulness. That he generally prefers the nonlethal bull - whip and carries a pistol only as a backup (in the movies, anyway) sends the message that he'd rather not kill if he doesn't have to.

Hairstyles and jewelry tend to remain the same in games even when clothing changes. Both function as good identifiers if you make them visible and distinctive enough. Jewelry, in particular, has a long history of magic, meaning, or mysticism: consider the significance of wedding rings, military medals, the crucifixes of

Christianity, and the steel bracelets of the Sikhs. If you want a magical power or status transferred to another character, you can easily do it by transferring a crown, ring or chain of gold, or gems. You don't necessarily have to give jewelry a mean­ing; as long as it's visually distinctive, it will help to identify the character and define his style.

Don't overwork a character by adding too many distinctive visual features. Two or three is usually enough—more than that and he will start to look ridiculous.

You can also give your characters distinctive names and ethnicities if appropriate. Consider how the men of Sergeant Rock's Easy Company in the old DC Comics World War II series reflected the ethnic diversity of America with names such as Dino Manelli, Izzy Cohen, and "Reb" Farmer—not to mention the square-jawed American hero, Sgt. Frank Rock.

There is a flip side to using such obvious names. Naming your characters in such a fashion lends them a cartoonlike style. This may be exactly what you need for some games, but for others it is not necessarily such a good fit. If realism is your aim, for instance, then such an unrealistic collection of names, each obviously chosen to represent an ethnicity or a stereotypical group, cheapens the final result.

Names do not have to spell out explicitly the character's persona. The name of Sylvester Boots, the hero of Anachronox, says little or nothing about his personality, though his nickname, Sly, is altogether more revealing. Lara Croft's name, although it does not immediately seem to indicate anything about the character, does (to English sensibilities, at least) imply a degree of upper-class Englishness.