Chapter 2.20. Emotioneering Techniques Category 20: First-Person Character Arc Techniques

Chapter 2.20. Emotioneering Techniques Category #20: First-Person Character Arc Techniques

Leave the player changed by your game.

This chapter focuses

on ways to induce a player to personally experience emotional growth and change during the course of a game.

In Chapter 2.9, "NPC Character Arc Techniques," we looked at ways to create emotional growth in an NPC. A Character Arc, as we discussed on Chapter 2.9, is the character's difficult path of growth through an emotional fear, limitation, block, or wound.

note

Refresher example: If a character grows from being and feeling like a nobody (his fear, limitation, block, or wound) into feeling like and being a leader, that's his Character Arc.

To create the experience of the player himself or herself undergoing personal change, however, requires quite different techniques techniques that have no parallel in film or television.

If you succeed in creating a game that leads the player through personal growth, the game can be quite emotionally gripping. But how can you honestly lead a player through emotional change?