I have encountered many characters throughout my life, watching television, reading books, comic books, playing games and films. Most of these characters are memorable, these memorable characters are very prominent to viewers due to the characters characteristics, some of these characters that come to mind are: C.J from the grand theft auto series, San Andreas, who's cocky attitude and surroundings made for an entertaining game, the heavy rain detective Shelby, who's personality is very much hidden until the end of the game, makes for an intriguing person to follow throughout the story line and my final example being Kratos from the god of war saga, his character is the whole basis of the entire game which, for me, was the selling point for the franchise which is the story of Kratos and through playing the games, the player discovers his troubled past.
There are techniques that the designers use to keep the attention of the player, these techniques, i think, are: the interest factor, the use of the characters past to lure the players into wanting to know more about the characters past which is the main reason for most gamers to play on through the game, they want to complete the story, characters involvement is a big influence on the response to the characters presented to the players, if a character is only seen once, for example, then if the player is left with a choice for this particular character's fate, then the choice to choose that fate is made easier due to the player not relating to the character, in the long run not having an emotional bond with that character, as opposed to a character that makes many appearances, making a connection with the gamer that makes such decisions harder to make as there is a much stronger connection. So screen time is a huge factor in character relationships in games and the player's feelings towards them.
The script is rather important when building character's persona in a game, if a character, for example, had a poor script then this would take away aspects of a the characteristics, that would usually be expressed in the cut-scenes of the story where the relationship between character and player is established.
Included in this equation is the acting of the characters during screen time, actors giving the characters emotion which is as important as a good script, as when, for example a passionate scene is to take place then the quality of acting would be the make or break of the scene, if the acting was terrible, then the emotion would not be felt by the viewer at all which would make for a bad turn to the story and overall a bad experience, with the player loosing interest and eventually stopping playing the game.
The appearance of the character must be interesting, the player has to have an initial attraction to the character he or she is going to control for the majority or all of the game, i think that the appearance of the character is a vital selling point for games that are heavily story based. Take 'Heavy Rain' for example, where
the whole twist in the tale is, Spoiler alert!, that the detective attempting to solve the case of the child murderer, turns out to be the child murderer, this comes as a huge shock resulting from his appearance, of a happy jolly detective which the player would not expect this particular character to be capable of such a crime.
Personally, i find stories that are murder mysteries and crime thrillers completely irresistible, its the solving of the crimes and the suspense that i find a great concept to include in a game, like the examples that i used earlier, 'Heavy Rain' it has all the elements that i look for in a game, solving crimes using intuition and clues, a very good character back story, acting and good action. so these types of games are what i find irresistible.
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