Oni2:Slaves of War/Story: Difference between revisions

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+pages 14-16; this is probably the last of it

Iritscen

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 * They're focused on one good aspect of the org. or how it aligns with their personal agenda, blinding their self to its bad aspects.
 * Deceit by leaders — it would be good to have one enemy who stands out from the others, who is sincere but misled, who suddenly takes a stand against his former allies at a crucial point in the story.
+===Empathy and sympathy===
+These words are often conflated, to the point that sympathy is sometimes now defined in the dictionary (it being a descriptive book, not a prescriptive one) as having the same meaning as empathy. However, the words originally differed thus:<br />
+'''Empathy''' is the ability to understand what others are going through.<br />
+'''Sympathy''' is going a step further and using that ability. You choose to feel what others feel.
+In order to write a successful story, the author needs to make sure the audience can empathize with the characters, but they also need to go a step further and give the audience a ''reason'' to sympathize with them. That’s how you engage the audience and make them care about the fate of the characters.
+Building:<br />
+Empathy - make situations relateable<br />
+Sympathy - make characters likeable
+* One way to do this is to show characters having sympathy for each other! When we see people understanding one another, caring about each other, and forming bonds, it makes us care more for both parties. After all, humans are imitative social animals.
+:An example of a scene that pulls heartstrings is someone putting their life on the line for someone else, especially if it requires them using all their available strength, say pulling someone up from a cliff edge, or holding/lifting something heavy off them. The question is whether we can just settle for showing this kind of thing in a cutscene, or whether we want the game itself to have moments that center around saving/helping people.
+:Also keep in mind that people don’t spontaneously reveal their more tender emotions or vulnerable moments to others, but if one character is trying to help another character, or convince them of something, it’s a good storytelling opportunity to reveal something about the character who’s speaking.
+:One possibility is to have an ally step into a boss fight to defend Mai if she is low on health, though a practical difficulty is that there is little opportunity to do this if they are fighting at close range and the player still has total mobility, as they will probably be too close for an ally to help with supporting fire. We could either have Mai temporarily restrained by an attack (a bit trite), or if we wanted to explore the possibility of reducing Mai’s physical abilities when health goes down, then Mai might be unable to move while she heals, giving an opportunity for an ally to step in, which is all the more affecting if he/she cannot last very long against the enemy.
+* A second way to do this is to make a character admirable. They can’t just be weepy, bleeding hearts; they should have skills and strong points that the audience can look up to them for. Examples?
+* The underdog effect can be very powerful. Watching a “disadvantaged” character do something awesome — someone who looks weak, or who we know is weak, driven to do something impressive, or becoming stronger after training. Or finding out that the character who looked weak (“She’s just a girl, what can she do?”) is actually super-strong.
+* Revisiting a likeable character that we didn’t think we’d see again can be a welcome event.
+* Filling in a character’s past is the standard method in animé/manga for making a character sympathetic — even for an enemy that only lasts one episode! Fill in examples here.
+* If we have highly interactive AI, then lots of comments during battle about their condition, the situation, and esp. concern for the player character will lend them empathetic qualities.
+* Giving Mai (the player) a choice of who to take on their team will encourage the player to care about those AI-driven characters much more than if they’ve been “saddled” with them as a mandatory part of the mission. Much more so if you can choose to take no one at all.
+Another important consideration is whether we want the villains to be sympathizable. Darth Vader becomes a more interesting villain once we learn about his tragic fall to the Dark Side. Animé occasionally delves into the past of villains and uses flashbacks to tell us more about them; some villains may be evil from the get-go, but some have fallen like Vader: ''Naruto'''s Kimimaro, Gaara, and Sasuke are examples. It’s impossible to give a villain a meaningful personality without some backstory, which presents a challenge for a video game; perhaps playing “flashback” levels as character can put the player in their shoes? The question would just be how to introduce such a level; why is the game suddenly changing our playable character? The answer might be a hand-off from Mai, in the form of her reading a story of their past. The player is seeing through Mai's eyes as she imagines what it would be like to be that character.
+===Development===
+How do the characters change? We need to give Mai something more than herself to focus on so she can evolve as a person. Someone to love, someone (or a group) to protect....
+You can build trust in a formerly-enigmatic character by having them reveal secrets to another character. This can even be used as a tactic to fool the audience with a twist.
+Characters can change in a negative way, too. For instance, giving in to violent urges or leaving behind someone they used to care about. This could be used for a surprising reveal at the end of the story if we only got hints as to the changes they were undergoing throughout the game.
+Also make sure to write backstories for everyone, especially Mai. We need to be clear on what happened to her as a child, what life was like at TCTF, what exact events transpired during Oni, etc. even if they're not shown to the player.
+===Good female characters===
+Mai has been through a lot. In order to survive the events of Oni, she had to be resilient mentally, quick on the uptake, and of course strong physically. Here are some other characters to use as references for Mai's character as we try to develop on what we saw in Oni.
+====Video games====
+*Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
+To look at:
+*New Lara Croft
+*Leliana (Dragon Age: Origins)
+*Persona 4
+*Elena & Chloe (Uncharted)
+*Nariko & Kai (Heavenly Sword)
+*April Ryan (The Longest Journey)
+*Heather Mason (Silent Hill)
+*Alyx Vance (Half-Life 2)
+*Jade (Beyond Good & Evil)
+*Liara T’Soni (Mass Effect)
+*Madison Paige (Heavy Rain)
+*Cate Archer (No One Lives Forever)
+*Kate Walker (Syberia)
+*Joanna Dark (Perfect Dark)
+*Faith Connors (Mirror’s Edge)
+*Jill Valentine (Resident Evil)
+====Anime====
+*Eclair & Lumiere (Kiddy Grade)
+*Birdy (Birdy the Mighty)
+*A-Ko (Project A-Ko)
+*Alita (GUNNM)
+*Robin Sena (Witch Hunter Robin)
+*Re-l Mayer (Ergo Proxy)
+*Ryuko Matoi (Kill la Kill)
+To look at:
+*Claymore
+*Blood+
+*You’re Under Arrest!
+====Real life====
+See [[wp:List_of_female_adventurers|List of female adventurers]], [[wp:History_of_women_in_the_military|History of women in the military]], [[wp:Women_warriors|Women warriors]], [[wp:List_of_women_warriors_in_folklore|List of women warriors in folklore]].
 [[Category:Oni 2]]