The Art of Character Design

Character design is crucial to any video game—the central character is an indispensable component of the gaming world. Games distinguish themselves from one another through tailored elements, notable among them being the primary game characters.

Each character often has a distinct personality, characteristics, quirks, and purpose. Video game writers, designers, developers, and programmers use a character profile to create an audiovisual masterpiece that embodies the character’s essence.

Often, designers begin in a sandbox, using randomized ideas to assemble a game concept for a character. An archetype narrows the focus.

Game designers can, for example, use a dozen character archetypes to draw inspiration from sages, caregivers, jesters, rulers, lovers, explorers, magicians, outlaws, innocents, creators, and heroes. Each archetype has specific behaviors, characteristics, and protocols defining who the nemesis is likely to be.

For players wanting to learn how to get better at strategy games, follow this tip: Play characters that you understand because their traits, behaviors, strengths, weaknesses, desires, and predictable behaviors are likely to follow the character archetypes.

This approach also provides a fantastic indication of the trials and tribulations the character is expected to undergo.

For example, a hero from The Legend of Zelda has predetermined characteristics, and it’s relatively easy to gauge the skillset, appearance, and characteristics. Here are two other examples:

• The Explorer – Hollow Knight

The Knight embodies the Explorer archetype, driven by curiosity and discovery. Explorers thrive on uncovering hidden truths and facing environmental challenges, like navigating Hallownest’s dangerous depths. Their nemesis is often stagnant or a barrier to exploration.

• The Jester – Borderlands (Claptrap)

Claptrap is the perfect Jester, bringing humor and chaos to Borderlands. Jesters lighten dark moments with witty antics but often become their worst enemy, as their eccentricities lead to comical mishaps.

Building the Character Profile

Game designers use a board to create character profiles, adding images and notes to describe the character’s basic information. They also create the backstory by giving all game characters a fascinating background.

This is part of the lore. The more detail, the better, since the evolution of characters’ backgrounds often reduces intricate detail to essential, cool components. A character’s backstory is central to the authenticity of that character’s development, relevance, and durability.

Determining Attributes and Visual Design

What does their attire look like? What are their physical characteristics? What about their weapons of choice? These are all critical elements to tackle in character development.

It goes to the heart of what makes them unique and how they define themselves within the gaming universe. Do the characters assume traditional human characteristics and features? Or are they sci-fi creations like World of Warcraft characters, orcs, dragons, beasts, and other fantasy-laden elements?

Game developers naturally need to be able to visualize their characters. That’s where imagery comes into the equation. Sketches, graphics, artwork, and renderings must be made. Visual inspiration for characters is often a go-to element for game designers.

Many complementary services are available where visual inspiration is readily available to game creators. With a visual rendering available, it’s time to determine how these characters ambulate, take on their enemies, and defend against marauding beasts.

What of their size, comportment, agility, dexterity, strength, or other superhuman abilities? Character-to-character interactions are equally crucial in gaming – it’s worth exploring and detailing this element of video game character creation. Animation is an integral component of the process. Understanding how the character will move in the gaming world is essential.

SoundCloud, YouTube, and Giphy are fantastic resources to use to add motion to your characters. Once all of this is taken care of, it’s time to collate the content into easy-to-follow topics. Presenting the character to team members in a concise and inspiring manner.

Refining and Expanding the Cast

Next, it’s time to browse the material with your team in attendance. If any anomalies are spotted, this is the time to make final tweaks. Invite critiques from experts to pick up any abnormalities in the character, however slight they may appear to be. Remain attentive to suggestions, and do not be offended by constructive criticism.

Now that your edit board is open to suggestions and all relevant team members have contributed and signed off on its creation, it’s time to begin crafting the other characters in the game. Never put too much emphasis on the first couple of characters because many games have myriad characters that deserve equal time, energy, and effort.