Character Development Techniques and Changes

Character Development Techniques and Changes

Over the last week, I have been processing my ideas and having extensive brainstorming sessions with my peers, in order to develop my techniques moving forward, as well as streamline the process moving forward. Below, I will list the changes I have decided upon, my reasons for doing so and how I hope they will improve the player's experience and attachment to their characters:

- I have decided to change how my characters are created, in order to make the progression of relationships much more believable later on. In order to do this, I am pulling the player's ability to generate their characters traits in the game, as well as set their personalities to 3 archetypes. These will include:

Physical character - A character who's main strength is combat. Although in conversation they may be blunt and sometimes arrogant, they are the strongest character. Benefits to this include increased physical stats and additional damage in combat. Aged between 30 and 40, this character will have powers based on physical prowess, such as speed and endurance. However, this characters trading and crafting is less impressive

Intelligent character - The main strength of this character will be its intelligence. Bright and quick, this character will excel in crafting and gain additional power through improved training. On the field, this character may be the weakest, but their crafting skills will enable them to gain valuable bonuses. Aged between 40 and 50, this character will be the oldest. They are less competent at trading and combat.

Charismatic character - This character will be the most effective at trading. Skilled in tongue, this player will be able to get the best deals and also gain additional time when captured. On the field, this character is a good middle ground. Aged between 20 and 30, this character will be the youngest on the field. They are less competent at crafting and combat.

In the process of creating these characters, the player will be able to change each character's appearance and name. However, players will always receive 1 of each archetype. In order to keep this fresh and different each playthrough, the characters will have randomly generated places of birth, occupations, family life and age (in their range). By doing this, the characters will be able to interact with each other fluently, building a rapport with the player as they go. 

- The way levels are generated is going to change, in order to ensure that interactions between characters can be fluent moving forward. Instead of randomly generating points of interest, the player will be given missions in specific places. In order to keep this fresh, I am thinking of between 12-16 places, of 3-4 different climates. For example, 4 city locations. Each location will have a set level type and also set character interactions, which I will get to shortly. Upon these levels being selected, they will load a level based on their level type. Perhaps one of 3 variations, for example. In order to improve the flow of the game, the game will consist of 5 levels. 4 missions generated as above and a final base attack mission. The first 4 levels, will be a selection of levels using types 'Looting (Main objective to find objects)', 'Killing (Main objective to kill enemies)' and 'Trading (Main objective to trade). The player will always get one of each level type during their playthrough, in order to experience everything and have the opportunity to use each character. 

- The process of choosing a character after selecting a mission will now be much different. After various brainstorming sessions, I have decided upon a UI interaction phase, where the characters interact with the player and react to the player's decision. This is where the set interactions will be used. For each location of which there will be between 12-16, the characters will have set interactions. If all 3 characters are available, they will interact in a conversation about who is best for the mission, before reacting to the player's choice. Each location will have 7 variations for character interaction, based on who is available, in order to make each interaction make sense. 

This process will consist of a text chain between characters, where the player will inform them of the mission details and the characters will reply with who they think is best for the mission. The player will then get to choose a character. The chosen character will finally react to the players decision, either positively or negatively, based on the discussions the characters had. This will be a realistic conversation, with quips and personality traits shining through. To get these results, I am planning on having the conversations in real life, using my 3 older brothers as the characters themselves. Each brother will be given a character brief, with which they will answer my questions and interact with each other. I will then add these dialogues into the game as text messages that will show on the players screen. Although this is more linear, it is expected that no game will feel the same and different conversations will always be happening in each playthrough. With 12 levels, the game will have approximately 84 variations of dialogue, that can be seen throughout the game. Additionally, the characters reactions will be randomly generated, meaning that the player always gets a different response to their decision. 

I have also discussed with peers how I intend to implement this into my game, as this made it easier to brainstorm potential issues. To do this, I will create a Structure in Unreal called Fconversations. This structure (A data holding variable) will consist of the Location name, as well as 2 different types of structure. 7 of the type  FDialoguChains (consisting of individual character dialogues, basedon who is available) and 2 of the type FReonses (consisting of the reactions characters can have to a player decision) Each location will have an conversation structure assigned to it, which the UI will use to display the individual character messages on screen.