ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, we discovered that the design of a character serves as an impor-tant visual cue to their personality and emotional state. This concept derives from the behaviors of real people who likewise externalize their inner feelings through outward forms of expression. What makes video gaming’s element of interactivity so signicant is that it allows designers to work in reverse: inuencing the gestures of players that, in turn, affect their emotional state. It’s for this very reason that we assigned so much importance to synchronized characters in Chapter 2, because they directly inuence the player’s physical gestures and sense of well-being. In this sense, the player is akin to a music conductor who activates and guides the orchestra, while simultaneously responding to the music with gestures that vary in accordance to the changing aesthetics of the musical composition. A playable character’s uidity of movement should therefore be a priority to ensure that the game’s storytelling capabilities are equally uid. Poorly implemented controls or controls that are not aligned with the narrative will result in players feeling a sense of dissonance that limits their level of immersion.
