{"id":204,"date":"2025-11-17T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/?p=204"},"modified":"2025-11-17T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:11:31","slug":"16-11-25-character-development-movement-blog-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/2025\/11\/17\/16-11-25-character-development-movement-blog-9\/","title":{"rendered":"16\/11\/25 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – MOVEMENT BLOG #9"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The narrative is heavily dependent on the characters and their interactions so I want them to have distinct personalities and designs. For constraint purposes and the scope of the game it would make more sense for the cast to be small so I decided to do three characters. This is a convenient number as I can cover the main shape design archetypes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For inspiration I began by looking at vintage hiking magazines to see the kind of clothing, colours and gear that was used. The jackets tend to be brightly coloured in order to be clearly visible. I found a website (http:\/\/www.outdoorinov8.com\/compass\/compass.html<\/a>) that archives these old advertisements, so I started making a moodboard out of them. Despite how the clothing is designed for very practical usage, it still has a lot of personality in the style and patterns used. By using a brighter colour palette for the characters, I can also communicate their connection with the more muted, earthier tones of the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I decided to make the year 1986 to fit the vintage theming and began my first pencil sketches of the main characters. Even though my style is not cartoony, a silhouette is still very important to differentiate a design and make them stand out. With my sketches, I chose the archetypes of the circle, square and triangle to kickstart the designs as well as adding a secondary shape to add extra dimension to the personality being communicated in the design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These were very rough but I was able to gauge the approximate dynamics of the trio. Onto the next page I drew some detailed headshots and began to jot down some ideas. I asked myself questions such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Why are these characters on the hiking expedition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-What are their relationships with one another? How would they interact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-What are their lives like; what is the context for the expedition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-How would these characters develop and cope with the expedition, what would they do if it went wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The questions had my brain thinking about the best way I could convey the themes, such as loss and hubris, within the characters themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protagonist is Tyler Wilder. I wanted a name beginning with T to be reminiscent of Tim Treadwell, as well as the surname Wilder being fairly on the nose with the setting. He is just fresh out of a break up with a long term boyfriend due to circumstances that are mostly his fault: addiction, selfishness, lack of prospects. Struggling with those things and some unaddressed trauma, he is unable to self actualise and take accountability. He has no sense of stability or identity. His character arc in the game is about reckoning with that sense of loss and self actualising deep in the wilderness, or succumbing to his hubris to the detriment of everyone around him. Very hyperbolic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcus is underachieving but unlike Tyler, it\u2019s because he puts other people first, he\u2019s too anxious to take a risk and look at change. He only goes on the hiking trip because he feels like he has to. Yet he ends up being the most prepared, despite being the least outdoorsy, due to his knowledge of the natural world and foraging, so his character arc would be finding a sense of purpose by confronting his fear of risk taking in the most extreme way. It\u2019s very parallel to Tyler, and Sierra\u2019s would be similar, though I haven\u2019t decided her story just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The narrative is heavily dependent on the characters and their interactions so I want them to have distinct personalities and designs. For constraint purposes and the scope of the game it would make more sense for the cast to be small so I decided to do three characters. This is a convenient number as I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideation","category-semester-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wsagames.com\/er7g24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}