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HOW CAN A GAME MAKE THE PLAYER SAD?
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KhaliCanvas Studios
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CloseI am talking about Valkyrie profile level of sadness. I would play lenneth again just to learn from it but my psp is broken.
Well-developed, believable characters that the player can connect with as a fellow person. Characters that are as realistic, emotional, as beautiful and flawed as actual human beings are the key to tapping into the player's emotion. Even if situations the characters are in are fantastic and removed from reality, their reactions can reflect real emotions that every person feels in their life - fear, passion, despair, tranquility. How a person reacts to any situation presented to them is what makes them unique, and the same goes for your characters. The better your grasp on human emotion, the more easily your game can connect to your audience and make them feel strongly about your characters.
A quick word of advice - absolutely avoid mono-emotional characters. There should be no character marked simply as "the cheerful one" or "the depressing one". While people react to different situations in their own way, every person feels every emotion sometime in their life. We feel sadness, feel fear, feel happiness. Your characters should do the same.
A quick word of advice - absolutely avoid mono-emotional characters. There should be no character marked simply as "the cheerful one" or "the depressing one". While people react to different situations in their own way, every person feels every emotion sometime in their life. We feel sadness, feel fear, feel happiness. Your characters should do the same.
TDS
1453
Evoking sadness requires some connection to a subject and then introducing the loss of that subject, which is something very hard to do normally and becomes even harder when you're not the subject experiencing the sad moment and are just watching it.
For example, if you see a random person die, then you would probably not feel much about the situation, but if you've watched that person's life and how they got to the moment before they died, then you've invested time into that life and watching it go could hurt you or make you sad.
Edit:
As for a good example of a really sad moment from Radiant Historia.
When Stocke sees some of the previous sacrifices preparing to return their souls.
For example, if you see a random person die, then you would probably not feel much about the situation, but if you've watched that person's life and how they got to the moment before they died, then you've invested time into that life and watching it go could hurt you or make you sad.
Edit:
As for a good example of a really sad moment from Radiant Historia.
When Stocke sees some of the previous sacrifices preparing to return their souls.
Make good, identifiable characters. Then do horrible things to them.
Alt route: Force player to do regrettable things via the gameplay. I.E: Have horrible things be brought about via their actions.
Alt route: Force player to do regrettable things via the gameplay. I.E: Have horrible things be brought about via their actions.
Yup, most everyone's brought up making the player get attached then ripping it away. Wes kind of touched on music, too. The perfect music can evoke strong emotions even when very little has happened. Another one I've experienced myself is predictability. If you know a character is going to flip about a character's death that you also care about, that can make it much worse. I guess it's kind of like having a character lead the player into the sadness.
You don't have to kill them, you know! Although, it is effective...
Where's the game about dealing with your first break up and then seeing your ex kiss someone else? Hmm?? That stuff is tragic!
Where's the game about dealing with your first break up and then seeing your ex kiss someone else? Hmm?? That stuff is tragic!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I use emoticons
:(
:(
ubon
66
yeah, you shouldn't be overeager to go for emotional appeal by imposing a bodycount. if you'd like a decent overview of terrible things to do to characters you love without killing them (most of the time), you should play Nier.
author=mawk
have you thought of deleting their save file?
Worked for Hero's Realm. I know I cried when I got that stupid save file error. ;.;
Mr_Detective
60
author=mawk
have you thought of deleting their save file?
author=LockeZ
I use emoticons
:(
author=Dyhalto
Play the Rape card.
Make two girls fall in love with each other and kill off one or both at the end. :D
/thread
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
author=Gourd_Clae
Another one I've experienced myself is predictability. If you know a character is going to flip about a character's death that you also care about, that can make it much worse. I guess it's kind of like having a character lead the player into the sadness.
This. But, like has been said before, it only works if the player can indentify with the character you´re going to kill off/do horrible things to. Play some symbolism or foreshadowing to create dramatic irony. Then, when the moment comes, the player will not only be sad at the death of said character, but also at their own inability to prevent that death from happening. Always make sure not to kill off main characters randomly.
It can be a little bit overly dramatised, with the character slowly starting to grow apart from the party, and eventually confronting them, unable to take it anymore, or sacrificing himself to prevent the rest of the party from dieing. FF2 uses the latter all the time, and I felt sad for every single death in it.
Bah, FF2...I picked up on the pattern quickly enough. 4th party spot was marked as cursed until I got back the guy who originally occupied it. Some deaths were more tragic than others, but in general the characterization wasn't strong enough for me to get attached to any of those guys.
Then again, it's possible I didn't let myself get attached because I knew they were all screwed. Welp!
Then again, it's possible I didn't let myself get attached because I knew they were all screwed. Welp!
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