Dreaming of red weather

It’s been way too long since I wrote about Flicker - especially since there’s only one character and a little bit of summary left to write about. So, without further ado, let’s talk about the last of the five playable characters in the game, Tiger.

To be honest, there’s not a whole lot to write about the character himself. Like Vixen, I didn’t get very much dialogue written for him. By the time the contest’s deadline passed, I had only finished his exchanges with maybe two characters and still had no firm idea what direction I was taking.

What I can write about, however, is the mistake I made conceptualizing him. I think it’s a pretty common one a lot of people will run into, especially when making something with an ensemble cast.

First off, though, a couple notes on his visual design. I had never really done this much stripeage on a character before, and the process made me realize some cool ramifications. One is that you can define 3D shapes a lot more - just look at the markings on the back of his head and ankles and you can kind of see what I mean; they have a lot more noticeable depth to them. I would even go so far as to say that the sheer amount of 3D definition given by stripes is probably where the whole Japanese “shimapan” (striped underwear) fetish originates. The more interesting thing to note about the stripes, though, was they made his facial expressions a lot more fun to work with. The face markings meant you could see how the individual facial planes moved in each expression, rather than simply inferring it from his mouth and eye shape. When I post the face graphics, keep an eye on how his cheek, snout, and eyebrow markings shift with the different expressions.

Beyond that, Tiger was just sort of the Big Guy. I gave him an imposing posture, mean-looking head tilt, and a loose backpack thrown over one shoulder to contrast Rabbit’s little tight-strapped one.

Conceptually, though, I think this is exactly where my problem began. Tiger was the Big Guy. When initially sketching out the cast’s body shapes, I didn’t have much in mind for him beyond being The Big Guy, since the cast lineup lacked any particularly massive and ripped individuals.

And when it came time to actually write for him, my resultant first inclination was to fall back on Big Guy cliches. He acts tough, he’s confident about the whole situation because he’s bigger than it, he puts some moves on Vixen, he makes some references to military experience when talking to Vulture, and he bullies Rabbit a little about his size and cowardice. It was nothing remarkable or noteworthy, just standard Big Guy stuff which on the surface seemed to fit his character. However, it didn’t have any real consistent, strong direction tying it together. And that made writing him really hard!

The thing about cliches is that they are predominantly response-oriented. If I dropped you into a conversation and told you to respond like a “comic relief” character, for example, you could probably produce some good, witty responses. But if I just dropped you in an empty room with some people and told you to act like comic relief, what would you do? Would you initiate a conversation with someone for the sole purpose of delivering humorous quips once it gets going? Would you just randomly try to tell someone a joke?

A cliche can give you enough personality to create a background character. You can have a burly guard intimidate a small character who approaches him, or a wise old man can drop some sagely advice as the protagonists swing through his abode, and that works fine. But when a character actually needs to carry scenes on their own, they need autonomous motivations tied into their current circumstances. No matter how much programming a cliche can give them, it won’t give them that on its own.

Of course, I didn’t realize this. All I knew was that I had a pretty good feeling how to write Tiger, and didn’t realize that the only exchanges that came easily to me were the ones where he was simply reacting to someone else. Characters like Vulture, by contrast, had entertaining ways they could take the initiative in conversations - even on something as banal as giving a status update on who was still alive.

The obvious question, of course, is “how could I have fixed him”. I can think of a few ways. Maybe I could have played up his bravery and aggression to the point that it was a threat to the other characters, and they actually worried he might start killing them to find which one was the Harvester. Maybe I could have given him some situational vulnerability, like a fear of the dark. Heck, given I designed him mainly for visual diversity, maybe I could have put him in a wheelchair or something; that would give an interesting new angle to any aggressiveness, making him the crew member least able to run away from an encounter with the Harvester and meaning he would essentially have to fight back. Each of these practically writes its own interesting angle for the different gameplay roles, too - imagine a Harvester who fakes a fear of the dark to avoid suspicion, or a Golden Claw agent whose desire to stop the Harvester is so strong that it makes him dangerous to everyone.

If you’ve read this far, you probably have your own, even more creative ideas for how I could have fixed my problems with him. That’s good! Keep those. The next time you find yourself sticking a cliche where you need an actual character, try drawing on some of the things you’re coming up with now. Maybe even look at some of the characters in your own works consider whether you’re unknowingly writing from a cliche yourself.

Tiger taught me the importance of making sure that even exaggerated characters who draw heavily from cliches have their own motivations and niche in the plot that lets them drive scenes on their own. It’s something that (hopefully) shows okay in Prequel, where I try to have very few characters who exist only to respond to the actions of others. Even characters like Quill-Weave or Asotil, who mostly react to Katia, have moments where their own motivations are what drives a scene forward.

Or backward. It’s a matter of opinion, really.

The next post on Flicker will just be some final thoughts about the game, its premise, and my feelings on the whole thing. I’ll try to throw all my graphics and Tori’s backgrounds into a handy folder so you can use them for whatever purposes you desire.

Oh, and since a few people asked, this is what the Harvester looked like if you finally killed it (bloody corpse courtesy Reptile):