Games, Sketches, and Thoughts

Today, I and my wife spend the whole day in Hamburg. Every two week we go to Hamburg, just for window shopping or hang out at the mall Hamburg is only 1 hour and 20 minutes by train from Bremen and we can go there for free since we’re university students

But this time, it’s a little bit special. It’s some kind of celebration for my wife who just finishes her script frenzy competition. Hurray I am so proud of her, especially when I heard that only 14% of the contestants who made it through the competition. For those who don’t know what script frenzy is, you can check their website here. It’s a movie script writing competition where you have to write 20.000 words movie script in one month (only in June). BTW, my wife also joined and finished the last NaNoWriMo competition. NaNoWriMo is another writing competition (from the same organization) where the contestants have to write a 50.000 word novel in a month

I learn a lot from her during the competition. We discuss many things and she loves to share the things she learned. One thing that interests me is about building a movie character which I think can be applied to video game. She said that one success key about making a good movie character is to make the audience fall in love with the character. In order to make it loveable, the movie character must have flaws, or problems that the audience can connect with. Do not try to make a very perfect character.

She said that one reason why the movie Tomb Raider 2 flop was the character, Lara Croft. Lara Croft is a rich, sexy, strong, and cool woman. She is able to fight and use guns, does some gymnastic movements, kicks some guy’s ass, and always gets the treasure that she wants. She’s just a super perfect woman and nobody loves a perfect character :twist: On other hand, have a look at the movie Spiderman 1 & 2 (I haven’t watch the third one ). Even though Peter Parker is the spiderman, he has a lot of problems just like ordinary people: getting tired of a tight schedule, almost failing his relationship with his girlfriend, struggling with his financial problem, almost fail his study, and feeling guilty of the death of his uncle.

Although a video game does not necessarily need a character (like Tetris), I want to create an interesting and loveable game character. I am tired seeing typical game character (or story) like a-man-with-gun, gangster dude, or an-amnesia-boy-who-has-to-save-the-world Game industry need to change its formula before the gamers fed up with it

BTW, my wife is also a gamer. She played the latest Price of Persia series, Yoshi Island DS, Yugi-OH, Disgaea series (had all her characters lvl 1500+ ), and have a very excellent skill on those casual games (Cake Mania, Zuma, Dinner Dash, etc). Once, she also developed games (together with me) but now, she decided to be a writer.