I've been working on my game for a few years now, and I have a few ideas in mind for character development, and how the story will progress. I would like to know your opinions on these ideas.

1. There are a couple of characters who are important to the story, but they don't appear in the story for a huge part of the game, and I was wondering if it's a good idea to give the player a sense of who these characters are and their relationships with the other characters through numerous flashback sequences. Would flashback scenes be a good way to explore the characters that are present and not present during the story?

2. I plan to have my project released as one full game, but the story will be divided into chapters. I was thinking that for the end of every chapter, I'm going to have a hand drawn scene and maybe enter the mind of one of the party members exploring his or her thoughts. After each chapter it will be a different character. It will be a short narration of what's been going on from the character's perspective, and other thoughts that he or she has. Would this idea even make sense, or should I just leave it to the regular cut scenes to explore the thoughts and feelings of the characters?

I'm just curious as to whether or not these ideas will make sense, and what you all think of it. I'm open to all opinions and suggestions.

I don't think flashbacks are the best solution to introducing characters that won't become important until later. If they aren't important until a later arch then theres really no need for the player to know that much about them until then, as the player will learn enough from their actions in the parts where they are important. If you want the player to be aware that these characters exist though, maybe try weaving them subtlely into the plot earlier, have them present at a few key events but don't draw too much attention to them. If they logically can't be weaved in that way then I think the player really doesn't need to know about them until later. And as you said, its in chapters so maybe thats a good thing.

As for the end of chapter thing, I think you're on the right track for an interesting feature, but you may have to rethink it a little. Keep in mind your player has JUST finished a chapter, they've already seen the plot - you shouldn't need to explaint it with redundant exposition for what the player has just seen. If you want something at the end of your chapters thats external to the game though, maybe you could do a short overview of whats coming up in the next chapter, or atleast some kind of speculation.

Hmnm well with Clannad they showed you an important character many times through these "flashback styled" scenes, it's the best anime I've seen and it was extremely sad at the end when the important character did the important thing. This is really upto you as a developer though.

1. Nah, it's not a good idea. IMO flash backs should be very rare in RPG games, serving just to show visuals to an important event that took place in the past, instead of some character talking about it. Flashbacks work better in story-driven media than in gameplay-driven media.

Novelist George Martin did an excellent job at this. There are a whole lot of minor characters with their own fleshed out personality and background, making them interesting right off the bat, but they don't become important until much later. When they do, it's pretty exciting because you've already grown attached to them from the small scenes they've played.

2. A hand drawn scene entering the "mind" of the character? Like a dream world, or do you mean showing what happened in that chapter from the perspective of that character? If the latter, wasn't the character already present during the events, thus making the perspective switch rather minor and unnecessary?

Thanks for the replies

They're not gonna actually explain what was done in the chapter its more like what they think, how they feel towards certain things, and their other hopes,fears, etc.


Sorry if I don't explain this properly. Its more like their thoughts on what has been happening so far. Its not just a retelling of the chapters. There will be a picture of whatever happens at the end of the chapter, and their thoughts won't always be directly related to the events of the chapter. It will just be the thoughts of the characters.

What about this; you could have a thing at the end of each chapter where you can select the core scenes you saw (maybe skip the ones you didn't see depending on how linear you're making your game), and it'll show them again, but without the dialogue and instead it'll have the character narrating their reflection of the outcome of the scene while the npcs are acting it out.

This sounds like an amazing idea to me.

If you ARE going to use flashbacks, I would be careful with them. Use them sparingly, and don't make them too long--usually, a flashback is just another lengthy scene where there's nothing for the player to do but push the 'advance text' button. Unless it seriously and legitimately adds something to the story at that point, or you can find a way to make it more involved for the player, you're probably better off not using it.

I agree with Vanit that if it's that important to establish the characters, you can probably find ways to weave them into the plot without resorting to a lot of flashbacks. While this is easier if the characters are well-known people, it can work just as well for veritable 'nobodies' as long as they are in fact significant to the characters. A close friend might show up at a few key events; on the other hand, an old hero might be talked about by locals (this also serves the double-purpose of filling in some random NPC flavor text, which can be such a PAIN). Things like that.

That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for the advice.

I understand what you're saying. I'll try to keep the flashbacks to a minimum if there are any at all, and make sure they're not a bunch of long boring scenes with tons of text. I never thought about keeping the player involved, but that's something I'll definitely do because I've played so many games where the scenes just went on for too long and I just found myself getting bored.