Looking back at the surviving flies and documents, I realized one thing was and is missing from all the work we did, a strong, logical, coherent story. Thanks to my team, we had good concept art, Motion capture for combat, a few high resolution model, and most of the basic reusable codes finished. But among these files, I found 7 different plots that I and others had written. The plots were ok but really didn’t work. Mainly because we know where the story ended , the main character achieving their goal, but not how how get there. Its like planing a get away weekend in Los Angeles. You book the hotel, buy tickets for a show, and map out the clubs. Then when the travel day comes, your realize you never thought about how to get to LA.
Many people quote the 7 Habits of highly Effective People, begin with the end in mind. However I think this is the wrong approach in game design. In a game, protagonist either completes the task set before him and defeats his rival. When I set down to redevelop my story, a line from the Tom Cruise movie Mission Impossible 2 opening scene kept coming to me.
Well, Dimitri, every search for a hero must begin with something every hero needs, a villain. So in a search for our hero, Bellerophon, we have created a more effective monster: Chimera.
Creating your villain sets up the entire story almost instantly. In order to start developing the antagoinist a little researh into theather must be done. I sugguest research into Aristotle’s Poetics, the earliest surviving text describing the parts of a Tragic drama.
In creating my antagonist, I went back and looked at two of greatest villians of Video Gaming history, Ganondorf of the Legend of ZeldaSeries and Sephiroth of Final Fantasy VII.
Ganondorf/Ganon
In order to understand why villain does what he does, you must identify their tragic flaw. Ganondorf’s flaw is Gerudo hertiage.
Memberby DesertOcelot on February 02, 2013 at 01:06 PM 430 Views
The Legend of Zelda series is filled to the brim with fantastical characters but there are none more important to the lore than the intertwining fates of three; Link, Zelda and Ganondorf. While Link and Zelda are different people in each installment, related only by ancestry, Ganondorf remains the same man, allowing for a metamorphosis of character through each game. While his alter ego Ganon, appears in a majority of Zelda games to date, Ganondorf has only appeared in three; Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. This is my analysis of the evolution of Ganondorf; from his ancient origin to his fallen fate, how the bandit king would be known as The King of Evil.
A Tragic Origin (Skyward Sword/Ocarina of Time) –
Ganondorf was born into the Gerudo tribe of female thieves and raised by a surrogate mother/witch, Twinrova to be their king. The Gerudos themselves are cruel and dangerous warriors and no doubt raised Ganondorf to replicate these very characteristics. It is assumed that, during the period when no male king is present, that Gerudos reproduce by using Hylian soldiers thus Ganondorf, along with many other Gerudos born around the same time, has Hylian blood in him.
The desire to take is a trait given to him by his Gerudo blood, but his desire for power is something engraved into his fate.
Sephiroth
“A god complex is an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility. A person with a god complex may refuse to admit the possibility of error or failure, even in the face of complex or intractable problems or difficult or impossible tasks, or may regard personal opinions as unquestionably correct. The individual may disregard the rules of society and require special consideration or privileges.” -Wikipedia
So before we go any further, let it be stated that “God complex” is not an actual clinical disorder. What we’re talking about here, in Sephiroth’s case, is an extremely arrogant and self-entitled personality. Some spoilers ahead, if you haven’t managed to play Final Fantasy VII yet(which you should).
Sephiroth was created by splicing human DNA with that of an alien being known as Jenova. Jenova came to the planet, looking to take control of its lifestream and basically use it as an interstellar space ship to conquer other planets. Sort of like a living, breathing death star. Sephiroth has no idea of this at the start of his life, and finds out later on, leading him to extremely conflicted feelings and basically breaking his mind. He goes on to think himself the inheritor of his “mother’s” work, trying to use Meteor to bring out the lifestream of the planet by injuring it deeply, and then merging with the lifestream to take control.
Basically, Sephiroth is an arrogant bastard who actually has the power to back up his claims. Cloud ends up being the only one capable of defeating him, and even he does so only at great cost. Sephiroth exudes confidence in his god-like abilities, and the haughtiness that comes with it. His hubris, in a way, leads to his downfall, however.
Future supervillains and gods of the world take note, hubris will always be your downfall. If you have a chance to just straight-up off the plucky hero, take it.