The JumpStart Blog

– From the Desk of Glenn Seidel, Game Designer–

Have you ever been to the circus and watched a performer on tight wire spin plates and keep their balance? Finding the right balance between characters, story and game play is pretty similar. It can be tricky not to let one element over whelm the other two. Often what happens in many games is that the focus of the production favors one over the others and the whole experience is weakened. It is like baking a good cake and who doesn’t like cake? Over the next few weeks, I will look at each piece of the pie….err cake.

I personally think you start with the characters. Colorful characters, with interesting and fun personalities can make any game sink or swim. Of course the sort of game you are making might need different sort of characters but it is a good rule of thumb. Psychonauts was a platforming game that came out a few years ago about a psychic kid’s summer camp. Tim Schaffer and Double Fine Studios did a great job of making fun, recognizable characters to populate the world. Even the characters that populated the world had fun and interesting things to share when you talked to them, like the girl that just wanted to play drums. These kinds of characters can make a mundane task really entertaining to complete.

Characters that reflect the same issues and problems the player experience are instantly recognizable and relatable. We all focused on this when we made our recent Jumpstart Worlds. We worked to create characters that were fun, but relatable. Eleanor, for instance, is a pink elephant that goes from a small little girl in a pink dress to a herculean figure. As she aged through each grade she got bigger and stronger but never stopped being the little girl she was in our first game. Eleanor wanted everyone to think of her as the same girl that liked having tea parties with her teddy bear, even if she could move boulders. Lots of kids (and adults) have that fear of growing up and being perceived differently. We never really came out and said any of this to the player directly but it helped us know her, as well as the other characters in the JumpStart world. It allowed us to recognize and find funny moments through out the game to elevate this concern.

Awww look at those eyes!

We designed missions around her and the other Jumpstart character that would take advantage of their unique personalities and needs. And it helped us game designers as we created the story around our games. Next week, the flour of our game cake story!