Hello everybody!

What does it take to create a character?

Today I wanted to learn a little bit more about character design. One of my favorite games nowadays is League of Legends, and I believe Riot Games are doing an amazing job with their character creation team bringing new champions to life every month or two.

Inspired by Riot Games I was researching a little bit about good character design. What are the main aspects that you have to consider in order to create a good character. And what’s the importance of the characters and their design to a game.

Well, first of all, we all know that characters are really important to games, they attract players, specially because they have the ability of allowing people to role-play. And if you remember back when I was talking about game design, i told you that designers are not only creating games, we are actually creating an EXPERIENCE. And characters is what allow us to enjoy and live that experience.

You probably have your favorite characters, we all do, and a good deal of why you enjoy playing those games is because of the character and the way they appeal to you. They are our bridge between the real world and the fantasy world.

So what makes a good character?

I listed some of the most important features I found about character design:

Cohesion – I believe that the most important thing in any character design is cohesion, every aspect of it has to be in sync with the others. Name, Look, History, Background and Personality.You want your character to fit in the world you are building and react appropriately according to it’s personality. Say your character is a Soldier, smart and brave, war hero, trained by the best to kill the bad guys, the game is an action game, full of explosions and enemy soldiers. Would you want your character to be whining about killing people all the time? Would you make it look scared? Would you make him a skinny guy in a suit going to war? If you answered yes to any of theses questions we might have a problem. Not saying it’s a problem to have a skinny guy as a soldier. As long as this is his story, go for it. But it has to fit! Remember this, ask questions to your character, think about what he or she might say under certain circumstances, if he’s a punk, make him act like one, if he’s a kid, make him act like a kid. Batman is a great example, Bruce Wayne and Batman have completely different personalities and reactions.

– I believe that the most important thing in any character design is cohesion, every aspect of it has to be in sync with the others. Name, Look, History, Background and Personality.You want your character to fit in the world you are building and react appropriately according to it’s personality. Say your character is a Soldier, smart and brave, war hero, trained by the best to kill the bad guys, the game is an action game, full of explosions and enemy soldiers. Would you want your character to be whining about killing people all the time? Would you make it look scared? Would you make him a skinny guy in a suit going to war? If you answered yes to any of theses questions we might have a problem. Not saying it’s a problem to have a skinny guy as a soldier. As long as this is his story, go for it. But it has to fit! Remember this, ask questions to your character, think about what he or she might say under certain circumstances, if he’s a punk, make him act like one, if he’s a kid, make him act like a kid. Batman is a great example, Bruce Wayne and Batman have completely different personalities and reactions. Background – Characters should have backgrounds, they should have a history, beliefs, motivations. What moves that character? Why is it the way it is? Don’t be shallow about it, give your player a story to agree with. You must make the player feel excited about the character, eager to control it and live it! And a Character’s story and personality are what will determine how the character reacts to certain elements in the game, which brings us to the next topic.

– Characters should have backgrounds, they should have a history, beliefs, motivations. What moves that character? Why is it the way it is? Don’t be shallow about it, give your player a story to agree with. You must make the player feel excited about the character, eager to control it and live it! And a Character’s story and personality are what will determine how the character reacts to certain elements in the game, which brings us to the next topic. Name – Naming your character is absolutely important. And it is a really difficult task, the name, just like the personality and history of the character, it has to fit. Think about some great characters, Mario, Luigi, Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft, Duke Nukem. A name has to be marketable, has to be catchy and smart. Not many rules on how to come up with names, but try to study existing characters and their names, think about how and why their creators came up with that idea.

– Naming your character is absolutely important. And it is a really difficult task, the name, just like the personality and history of the character, it has to fit. Think about some great characters, Mario, Luigi, Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft, Duke Nukem. A name has to be marketable, has to be catchy and smart. Not many rules on how to come up with names, but try to study existing characters and their names, think about how and why their creators came up with that idea. Look – Just like we said on cohesion, the look of your character obviously should be in sync with it’s personality and history, you don’t want a punk kid to look like a nerd, and vice-versa, make their look feel real, this will help a LOT with the player’s experience.

To sum it up, i believe everything comes down to cohesion, give your player a solid story, pretend as if it is a real person, and create a life for it, this is the only way a player is going to feel fully immersed in the game.

I’ll leave you with a great interview with a character designer at Riot Games explaining a little bit about their process of character creation, you can find great insights in there,I highly recommend it.

Interview with August Browning from Riot Games:

http://www.pcgamer.com/what-does-it-take-to-build-a-league-of-legends-champion/5/