Without great graphics, the key to formulating emotion in non-rpgs depends on the game designer''s ability to portray the main character as an individual. Simply leaving him as the eyes of the gamer is not enough, which is what pretty much all non-rpgs do. The gamer must be able to see through this person''s soul as much as you see the world through their eyes.

In such a situation, you can''t just ignore the writing and rely simply on lonely visuals and haunting melodies. Even though writing would be more difficult to implement in such a situation, it becomes more vital because you don''t have as much time to develop a story or a motivation for the character.

Naturally, writing wouldn''t be simply limited to dialogue in this case. Interior monologues, journal entries, etc. would be incredibly to show the character''s perspective and, furthermore, that he/she DOES have a perspective. An example of this, even though it was an RPG, was FF8. The gamer was allowed to see the thoughts of Squall and the contradiction between his inward and outward self. Even though it was a "party" game, Squall''s inner persona could very much be considered "non-party" as it rarely came into contact with any of the outside world. A horrible example of this is Duke Nukem, where the main character talked to himself in generic tough guy phrases to impress the more ignorant participants in the gaming audience.

In short, to create emotion in a non-RPG game, the designer must show the gamer that the character controlled DOES have emotions and that they are playing a big factor in what the character does. Unless you had incredible, photo realistic graphics, and brilliantly emotional music(two things that most games don''t have), one cannot ignore writing in such a game.

quote: Original post by PHRICTION
But how does one create feeling for a character, and have him/her still an important gameplay part, if a non-party based game? Where you only have direct control over the main character. The player is usually not going to like sitting through tons of dialog with the doomed character, unless it is relevent, and not just to get to know him/her. And are they going to care if the person dies if they are just story despensers? And thoughts?

The concept of the ''party'' is an artificial one anyway. If that character is on your side, has emotional connections to your character, or has a particularly interesting sub-plot, then there''s no reason why the player wouldn''t be sad to see them go. The 3 main points, as I see them, are to firstly make the player familiar with the character, by introducing them early and exposing them to the player a lot, secondly make the player like them through some sort of common cause (maybe they''re on the same side) or emotional bond, and finally make the eventual loss very noticeable and permanent.

Alagner''s death in Ultima VII certainly made me feel something. I/my character didn''t really know him since he had only been encountered a short time before, but he was definitely on my side and he was definitely gone for good. The result was not so much tragedy, but certainly drama. If Alagner had been around for more of the game, I expect it would have been tragic.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost | Asking Questions ]

I cried in Civ 1 when the evil French killed my civilization.

very sad

you just have to make the gamer think he/she is winning, then crush him/her.

I think Metal Gear Solid mixed tragedy, with acction and basically every emmotion perfectly. The game was fun, great game play and great story more action games need to be like that. Most game companies when creating an action game just think about the cool effects etc.. Not thinking about how damn corny the story is.