Skip to content
Notes
- If your game is fun and lighthearted, make villain comical
- If game is more dark and serious, make villain more serious so player feels more accomplished when they beat them
- Two types of game villains:
- Mechanical
- “Big boss”
- There for the purpose of the game
- Something to shoot, punch, kill, etc
- When player reaches mechanical villain they should have to use all the skills they have been learning in past parts of the game
- Villain should have a justification as to why player can’t just fight them in the beginning and get it over with
- Narrative
- Purpose is to drive the story
- Motivates main character
- Aren’t there to be just an end boss
- There to make the world the player is inhabiting more immersive
- Conflict and drama of story
- Lots of games use mechanical villains where there should be narrative villains, messes up games
- To make a good narrative villain:
- Ask what’s their motivation?
- Worst dictators and criminals have reasons to doing what their doing
- Ex. greed, philosophy, idealogy
- How do you communicate your villains motives?
- Actions speak volumes about who they are and what they want
- No forced super-villain monologues
- Narrative villains should be somewhat sympathetic
- Makes player think about whether or not they are on the right side of things
- Consider the protagonist
- Should push against each others ideas, make each other question themselves
- Villain should be “shown” not “told”
- More actions, less dialogue
- Know what’s essential to the game and to the plot
- Plot is prioritized over character
- Lots of great stories don’t need a antagonist
- Some stories just have a large obstacle to overcome
- Some have 2 protagonists that have different ideals and get in eachothers way
- Some have a hero who ultimately turns into the villain
- Some are about a person trying to decide which side is the bad or the good
- If your story has drama, then a narrative villain is neccessary