Chapter 7
Control
The Aesthetics of Playable Characters
When designing virtual characters, arguably one of the most difficult challenges is devising characters that will be controlled by players. Player characters not only require a significant amount of development time (on the basis that they are likely to be the most heavily featured and most interactive of all the characters in a given product), but also pose more conceptual problems. These characters need to be likeable and understandable to a wide audience, which raises sociological issues of identity and representation. They need to play a clear and central role within a video game narrative, but if they are too tightly authored and unresponsive to player agency, then players might feel ...
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