BBVG--Lesson-4

Welcome to The Business Behind Video Games!

Warm Up - Video Game Characters

Open to a fresh Google Doc.

Name it VG-Character--your first and last name

There can be only one... Make your choice...

WHO is the BEST Video Game Character?

WHY? What makes them the best?

List all of your reasons and rationale in your Google Doc.

Use complete sentences, paragraphs, and a bulleted list if necessary.

You have just five (5) minutes to defend your claim. Ready, Set, GO!!!

Creating a Main Character

Creating a main character for a video game is easy. Just kidding. It is a long and complex process with many details. The process itself sounds simple, but it can be very time consuming. In order to keep it simple, let's follow this process to get things started:

Choose a Character Type

Human, Dog, Cat, Bird, Dinosaur, Alien....the possibilities are as endless and will go as far as your imagination will take you.

Choose a Gender for your Character

The gender can be crucial to the character as it will unlock a whole half side to the personalities that are considered normal and personalities that are not for that gender. Because this is a game, you will want to see what significance gender has on the game world, for example, in a medieval setting females were not as highly respected as men. So this character (if female) may have difficulties in that setting. You can also make your character gender-neutral, it's up to you. (Male, Female, Gender-Neutral)

Choose a Personality Type for Your Character

As a main character, do they have a personality that helps them fulfill their role? Are they aggressive or kind or both? Are they hardworking? Are they very social or not social at all? Are they very perceiving in personality? Introvert? Extrovert? Choose whether each trait is environmental or not.

Strengths & Weaknesses of Your Character

Now you have a personality to work on, you should now see what strengths and weaknesses the character has.

Are they strong? Are they intelligent? Are they social? The more weaknesses the more

interesting it will be too, because it will add more suspense as the character will be in more trouble more often due to clumsiness or low intelligence.What is the characters background? How involved is the character to the game world? Decide whether the background suits the personality or is a result of the personality. This may not want to be revealed all at once to the player to create more dynamic suspense.

Give each character something unique. Something that people know them for. Whether the character is a boy or a girl or gender-neutral, they should have their own unique thing. Could it be the clothes they wear? The condition they have? A weapon they carry? Something in their appearance? It could be anything really...

Salability & Appeal of Your Character

A well-developed character can be worth MILLIONS of dollars and the start of a multi-million dollar franchise. Typically, the highest grossing characters are the main character or the main villain. Other characters may have a small following, but they do not generate the type of interest or dollars that main characters/villains do. Give your character traits that make them appealing to large audiences. The chance for profitability will increase if your character is liked/hated by a large group of people.

Complete the Character Development Form on Google Classroom to begin the process of creating your character.

Physical Appearance

Now is the time to open a Sketch App that we downloaded the other day, either Adobe Illustrator Draw or Sketchbook Express.

Use this time to create a sketch of your main character. Your sketch should be a full-body, front-facing sketch. Then create a side-profile sketch, and a back-sketch of your character. Please pay special attention to all of the physical features and clothing options. A short list is shown below:

Head Face--Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Facial Hair, Eyebrows, Lips; Ears, Hair, Neck

Body Tall, Short, Skinny, Thick, Muscular, Arms, Legs, Chest, Hands, Feet

Clothing Shirt, Pants/Shorts, Hoodies, Shoes, Gloves, Boots, etc.

Accessories Jewelry, Glasses, Bracelets, Armor, Hats, Backpack, Shield, Weapon, etc.

Things Change. People Change. Video Game Characters Change. And that's OK.

Homework - COMPLETE YOUR SKETCHES & Main Character Form if you have not already done so. Turn all 4 into Google Classroom when complete.

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