Interacting With Characters
One of the more neglected forms of agency in games is the ability of the player to exert influence on non-player characters. In striking contrast to mainstream entertainments such as literature, television, and film, games often seem to dedicate far more resources to deforming terrain than to shaping character responses.
Certainly we’ve all experienced the placid, untouchable quest NPC in the middle of a full-scale firefight, or the shopkeeper who doesn’t seem to have noticed that you’ve killed off the entire town. When characters do notice your actions, it’s often in the form of a generalized love/hate slider, like World of Warcraft’s factions.
The few stabs games have taken at reactive characters have been successful. Good/evil games such as Fable often write several paths of dialog for each character. In KoTOR, you have the opportunity to sway a recovered dark jedi either towards the light, or into relapse. Watching the consequences of your actions on another feels more compelling than your own good/evil choices.
The Sims pushed character interactions further than any other game to my knowledge. It communicates the internal state changes of its characters through their actions, as well as gestures and Simlish.
Despite early successes such as The Sims and KoTOR, developers are reluctant to take on the challenges of deeper character interaction. Understandably so– the topic gets short shrift at game development’s popular conferences such as GDC. The state of the art is quite primitive. But players are happy to fill in the details. Remember, you were once quite happy to accept this as a castle.
