Epätyypillisen antagonistin luonti seikkailupelille

Abstract

Creating character concepts for games poses a challenge as the internal aspects of a character shape the visuals more than is apparent. This thesis investigates aspects that go into character design within the framework of the commissioner's needs for character concept art.

The goal of this thesis is to study what a non-archetypal antagonist is, showing the relevance of research and the background material that is either provided by a client or the artist themselves as well as studying the effects of character archetypes on concept art. This is achieved by studying existing theoretical material on adventure games, antagonists and character design as well as reviewing the results of a survey created for this thesis through stratified sampling.

The thesis concludes that the definition of a non-archetypal antagonist depends on current trends in popular media as an atypical antagonist is characterized by negating the traits of a typical antagonist. Another discovery is that researching the background material has an important role in character design both from the perspective of the designer as well as the player. These findings are used in the commissioner’s request for a concept on their antagonist in their upcoming title KVLT, resulting in the concept art of the non archetypal antagonist Ego. Throughout the process it is noted that studying these aspects in the thesis shows that the background material has an important role in character design.