Is this you?
Does your game start with a brief history told in cut scenes ending with your main character awaking in hometown 1 to a best friend or love interest or mother rousing him from his sleep so he can go to some cave or castle or school or festival for a first adventure with a generic friend whose sole eistence is comic relief?
Is your hero of unknown origins/a chosen one living with a foster parent elder whose village ends up being destroyed or banishing him in a ham handed attempt to justify the hero's departure.
Is your main character some spikey haired precocious adolescent who lives a care free life until his call forces his departure? Or is he a gothic brooding figure who lives alone, and who's parents are dead or unknown?
Does the main thrust of your quest require the main character to collect orbs, crystals, espers, insert sacred sounding crap here to open the door to some powerful weapon, netherworld, sacred gods, or climactic truth?
Does your world have a massive controlling kingdom, religion, government, or super corporation whose sole existence is to hoard power for power's sake and decieve the people from the truth about their existence as chattel?
In short, is your plot actually a rearrangement of plot and character cliches from games you liked? We've all been here, and, while I won't say that cliches/stereotypes are necessarily completely bad writing practice, there are things you need to be wary of.
Stereotypes aren't a substitute for character depth or development.
Movies, video games, TV, really all genres dealing in fiction love to use stereotypes. The pro's employ them all the time, but they do so for very specific purposes. First, stereotypes are a good way to bridge the issue of information cost when it comes to introducing characters. Referencing commonly used character types allows viewers to fill in a lot of information and develop familiarity with the character in a very short amount of time. This is due to the time constraints on the genres the writer works in as well as the competitive nature of the market. TV is filled with uptight controlling goody two shoes paired with free wheeling disorganized rebels with a goofy dufus on the periphery that serves as comic relief. We know these structures when we see them and we fill in all the unsaid details about the character into the empty vessel of the stereotype. In this fashion stereotypes are instantly recognizable and allow the writer to focus on creating interesting humor and drama rather than being bogged down in exposition.
Yet, in shows that survive their first few seasons and movies that become critically acclaimed characters eventually step out or even subvert their introductory stereotypes to reveal depth and realistic psychology and relationship development. One way to look at stereotypes in a character's personality is as a shallow public persona. This is how the character wants people to think of them for whatever functional purpose. The challenge of the writer is then to figure out the psychology, the desires, and flaws that creates such a public persona. Careful focus on the background of the public persona would be where the writer eventually discovers the subtle flaws and foibles that makes the character eventually evolve into something more immersive and unique.
Ask yourself, did you write your game or just rearrange and mix together your favorite game plots and characters?
After you finish writing you really need to ask yourself if you have any stamp on what you created, or if you merely composed a long string of references to your favorite games. Our ideas for what makes a good story is often based on stories we liked so such imitation is natural, but there comes a point where you need to develop your own voice and tell your own stories. The major problem with filling your game up with renamed clones of Cloud and Vaan and rehashing plotlines from xenogears and some interchangeable ff game is that you are walking your audience through a story they've already heard before. What's worse is it was probably told better the first time they heard it. Think of like if your child's favorite story was little red riding hood, but now he wants to hear something new because it's gotten old. So you invent a story about a girl who has to cross a mountain to deliver medicine to her father but an evil boar has kidnapped daddy and is hiding in his bed pretending to be her father. Do you think your child would find that to be an entertaining change of pace?
Are you employing a game cliche/convention for any purpose other than, "Well they did it!"
Does your game open with a ten minute series of cutscenes detailing political intrigue and the history of the world? Is all this information neccessary right at the beginning? Is your only justification for doing so because well they did it in xenogears or FF? Back in the day most writing was done by programmers who wrote on the side, but were not pro screenwriters. They could get away with these sins of tedium because the audience trusts and knows that the product will lead to something that is immersive and playable because of the franchise's track record. As an indie you have no such advantage. Think of your games as like a pilot to a TV series. You need your first ten minutes to grab your audience to engage in the remaining twenty and want to tune into the next episode. You need to quickly demonstrate that your product is a game and not a pretentious history lesson, and develop creative ways for them to want to immerse themselves. Some ways of doing that is including a hook that demonstrates that your product is not merely a rehash of stuff they've already done and seen.
Feel free to use this thread to discuss cliches and stereotypes in video games.
Does your game start with a brief history told in cut scenes ending with your main character awaking in hometown 1 to a best friend or love interest or mother rousing him from his sleep so he can go to some cave or castle or school or festival for a first adventure with a generic friend whose sole eistence is comic relief?
Is your hero of unknown origins/a chosen one living with a foster parent elder whose village ends up being destroyed or banishing him in a ham handed attempt to justify the hero's departure.
Is your main character some spikey haired precocious adolescent who lives a care free life until his call forces his departure? Or is he a gothic brooding figure who lives alone, and who's parents are dead or unknown?
Does the main thrust of your quest require the main character to collect orbs, crystals, espers, insert sacred sounding crap here to open the door to some powerful weapon, netherworld, sacred gods, or climactic truth?
Does your world have a massive controlling kingdom, religion, government, or super corporation whose sole existence is to hoard power for power's sake and decieve the people from the truth about their existence as chattel?
In short, is your plot actually a rearrangement of plot and character cliches from games you liked? We've all been here, and, while I won't say that cliches/stereotypes are necessarily completely bad writing practice, there are things you need to be wary of.
Stereotypes aren't a substitute for character depth or development.
Movies, video games, TV, really all genres dealing in fiction love to use stereotypes. The pro's employ them all the time, but they do so for very specific purposes. First, stereotypes are a good way to bridge the issue of information cost when it comes to introducing characters. Referencing commonly used character types allows viewers to fill in a lot of information and develop familiarity with the character in a very short amount of time. This is due to the time constraints on the genres the writer works in as well as the competitive nature of the market. TV is filled with uptight controlling goody two shoes paired with free wheeling disorganized rebels with a goofy dufus on the periphery that serves as comic relief. We know these structures when we see them and we fill in all the unsaid details about the character into the empty vessel of the stereotype. In this fashion stereotypes are instantly recognizable and allow the writer to focus on creating interesting humor and drama rather than being bogged down in exposition.
Yet, in shows that survive their first few seasons and movies that become critically acclaimed characters eventually step out or even subvert their introductory stereotypes to reveal depth and realistic psychology and relationship development. One way to look at stereotypes in a character's personality is as a shallow public persona. This is how the character wants people to think of them for whatever functional purpose. The challenge of the writer is then to figure out the psychology, the desires, and flaws that creates such a public persona. Careful focus on the background of the public persona would be where the writer eventually discovers the subtle flaws and foibles that makes the character eventually evolve into something more immersive and unique.
Ask yourself, did you write your game or just rearrange and mix together your favorite game plots and characters?
After you finish writing you really need to ask yourself if you have any stamp on what you created, or if you merely composed a long string of references to your favorite games. Our ideas for what makes a good story is often based on stories we liked so such imitation is natural, but there comes a point where you need to develop your own voice and tell your own stories. The major problem with filling your game up with renamed clones of Cloud and Vaan and rehashing plotlines from xenogears and some interchangeable ff game is that you are walking your audience through a story they've already heard before. What's worse is it was probably told better the first time they heard it. Think of like if your child's favorite story was little red riding hood, but now he wants to hear something new because it's gotten old. So you invent a story about a girl who has to cross a mountain to deliver medicine to her father but an evil boar has kidnapped daddy and is hiding in his bed pretending to be her father. Do you think your child would find that to be an entertaining change of pace?
Are you employing a game cliche/convention for any purpose other than, "Well they did it!"
Does your game open with a ten minute series of cutscenes detailing political intrigue and the history of the world? Is all this information neccessary right at the beginning? Is your only justification for doing so because well they did it in xenogears or FF? Back in the day most writing was done by programmers who wrote on the side, but were not pro screenwriters. They could get away with these sins of tedium because the audience trusts and knows that the product will lead to something that is immersive and playable because of the franchise's track record. As an indie you have no such advantage. Think of your games as like a pilot to a TV series. You need your first ten minutes to grab your audience to engage in the remaining twenty and want to tune into the next episode. You need to quickly demonstrate that your product is a game and not a pretentious history lesson, and develop creative ways for them to want to immerse themselves. Some ways of doing that is including a hook that demonstrates that your product is not merely a rehash of stuff they've already done and seen.
Feel free to use this thread to discuss cliches and stereotypes in video games.
