Says Broussard, "The above is merely a starting point for developing your own characters, and you can make them more or less complex, depending on your needs. Motivation: FBI agent/uncover conspiracies Personality traits: Determined, inquisitive, lonerĪppearance: Black suit, white shirt, tie, cell phone Motivation: Kick alien ass/score with babes See if you can guess the character before the name is given, simply from the basic elements:Īppearance: Sunglasses, red muscle shirt, bandoliers, blond flat top To further illustrate his point on the "parts" of a distinguishable character, Broussard provides these examples: Examples: Duke Nukem, Sonic the Hedgehog, Earthworm Jim. Rhyming and alliteration are good tools to come up with a catchy character name. A character's name should be "catchy" and unique in some way, so people hear the name and get an instant image in their minds. Remember the "Where's the Beef?" commercials for Wendy's? Examples: "What's up, doc?" (Bugs Bunny) "Up, up, and away!" (Superman) "Holy hand grenades, Batman!" (Robin) "I'll be back" (The Terminator) "Go ahead, make my day" (Dirty Harry). The best characters become famous and well known for a simple catchphrase that sticks in people's minds, and usually becomes part of pop culture. Why do your characters do what they do? What drives them? Once this is established, your characters will get stronger from doing things the way people expect them to.Ĭatchphrase. Examples: Lara Croft, Superman (almost any superhero), Darth Vader. There should be a distinctive look to your character, so people will learn to recognize the character from appearance alone. This defines the character's personality and how he or she reacts to situations.Īppearance. To reiterate and summarize his points made above, Broussard says you can break down any character into the following characteristics: Characters that are larger than life, and for those types of characters there's a pretty basic starting point. We typically create over-the-top characters that lean more toward what you might find in comic books or high-action movies. Our gaming audience is getting more sophisticated every day and won't settle for less.īroussard adds that this advice really depends on the types of characters you want to make. What you end up with is an interesting character who's fairly unique to games, and hopefully people respond to that. Max narrates his journey metaphorically, in the style of detective films of the1940s and 1950s. Finally, you give Max his "personality" through the way he speaks. He's an undercover cop, with his back against the wall, out for revenge after the death of his wife and daughter. His name has a unique hook and people usually get the pun-that he delivers "maximum pain." Then you give Max a compelling reason to act and be motivated. Remedy Entertainment did a great job with Max Payne. That's the "hook." Once you have a hook that people find interesting, you just flesh out the character with personality traits, mannerisms, and catchphrases.īroussard explains why Max Payne is more than just a cool name: We try to create catchy character names-like Duke Nukem or Max Payne-that instantly get a reaction from people, or create an image in someone's mind. Without that, nothing you do with a character matters. (Heck, his name says it alone!)ģD Realms president George Broussard offers some advice to those looking to create character-driven action games:įirst off, your game has to be great. I think they appreciate being left out of it.Įver since the third game in 3D Realms' popular Duke Nukem series came out in 1996, countless others have tried to create a successful lead character by mimicking its overly macho, mouthy, badass hero, Duke Nukem. We work with them through Interceptor, obviously, but we haven’t purchased their shares or assets or anything like that. Just to make it clear, we have not purchased Apogee Software LLC, who own the rights to Rise of the Triad. We clarified it quite a lot in our international statement that went out this morning, or at least we tried to. We should have made it a little clearer in our statement that went out to the Danish media and then spread from there. The confusion arises because 3D Realms, the legal entity of 3D Realms, is actually still called Apogee Software Limited. To clear that up, we have not purchased Apogee Software LLC. It’s interesting, because that’s the one that has the full rights to Rise of the Triad, right? People had thought that you had purchased that one. RPS: I know there’s been a bit of minor confusion in the wake of the purchase, because there’s actually another Apogee.
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