Final Thoughts

This chapter has discussed ways of making NPCs seem more alive by giving them emotional depth which the player only feels because his or her own emotions are triggered in turn.

Making any element of storytelling, including characters, interesting is different than adding emotional depth to that element. You can have deep characters who are still uninteresting, either because they lack enough corners in their Diamond or because the corners of their Diamond form a cliché combination.

There are a vast number of ways to give depth to characters. I encourage all of you to embark on the same Emotioneering training mission: When you see a scene in a movie or TV show where one of the character comes off as emotionally "deep," try to figure out what's going on to create that emotional effect. Then ask yourself, "Would it work in a game?"

Up until now we've been examining major NPCs. In the next two chapters, we'll see what can be done with minor NPCs, who may have only one or two lines of dialogue in the entire game. How do you make them interesting? How do you make them emotionally deep?