Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering™

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 ...