Categorization

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Crusher
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Categorization

#1 Post by Crusher »

Oh man I hate finding the words to start a thread... Yay, done!

As I was browsing very much through this message board during the last few days, there's one thing I noticed here that I haven't seen anywhere else before: Everything is full of things that are categorized. We don't have a love story, we have a B&G, G&G, G&B, C&G, A&D sim. And some people say that they will not touch anything that is not their preferred one. While I've never seen what that actually means I can only guess it's "gender-of-mc & gender-of-romance". Okay, maybe the romance is everything that counts in those games and people only want to see a romance that they want themselves, I can understand that at least.

However, the category-monster doesn't stop at that point. It even goes much deeper into the story: to the characters themselves. We don't have characters with unique personalities, we have tsundere, a yandere, whatever other terms there exist.
And that really made me wonder: Why is there a need to do that? It's not just something to express what people like, I've seen that in story descriptions as well. "I have this character, she is a tsundere". This just puts the magic out of everything for me. It's like the character was put into a personality-box and the only use of them is to add all the elements you like. Plus it already tells you how the story will lead.
To me characters have always been the soul of every story. Although some developments may be the same, each character is unique. Even though one character may not be talking much in the beginning I never know where it will lead. If I hear such a description I immediately know it.
When I'm trying to create characters I try to forget everything that is already known. I'm just trying to imagine how I want the character to be. What that person likes, maybe some things making them special, some problems that they have. I don't try to think of anything I liked before. I mean, in the end I'm trying to create and not rebuild something.

So, I'd like to hear your opinions about it. Are you one of the people who use all this categories? Why do you think they are needed? Anyone seeing this as I do?

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Re: Categorization

#2 Post by Taleweaver »

I am one of the guys who considers categories as almost universally evil for planning and designing a game, and at the same time as very helpful for describing a game once it's complete.

If you approach writing a story in terms of "I need a yandere, a tsundere, a moe meganekko and a loli", you're ignoring the natural character building that can happen if you just let the plot unfold and see what sort of characters come out of it. As for the "AxB" part of the plot, that's also that should come naturally with the plot; you usually shouldn't say "I want to make a game that appeals to girls" but rather "I have a neat story I'd like to make into a game; I think a female protagonist would work best for it."

Then, after it's done, you will have a BxB otome game featuring a yandere MC and many subtropes of bishounen characters. That's no longer of any interest to you as you already wrote the game. But your players might want to know what you made, so they categorize it. And that's okay, because of course they want to play the games they prefer.
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Re: Categorization

#3 Post by shatteredfox »

I feel that character archetypes should be hidden from the viewers. I use archetypes all the time but I agree that if someone explains the characters it ruins it. Especially if they keep the mindset of "this character has to be a Tsundere."

My idea generally breaks down to this:
Settings -> Plot -> How does the MC tie into the plot -> MC.
Supporting cast/Heroine:
Tsundere -> Why is she a tsundere? -> because plot -> How she react to MC -> Why does MC choose to pursue her? -> etc...

Half the time my characters don't even resemble anything of the archetypes they came from. I've created a character from a shy girl template whose final design ended up being a character with severe social anxiety and Prosopagnosia(the inability to recognize faces.)

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Re: Categorization

#4 Post by Fawn »

I'm happy for the categorization, actually... They're like tags in a search engine. Since we can't really search WIP projects (that'd be silly since most of them don't get done anyways) it's nice to have people label what their game is.

It may be judgmental but I know when I see someone slap "otome" onto their game I most likely will not like it. That "label" to me says the game will only be about shiny bishies wooing over a whiny protagonist with some kind of loose "plot". (yes, yes, I know, they're not all the same, but can you blame me for thinking that?)

As for characters archetypes, I agree that they should be hidden. The player should get to know the character first themselves, then categorize if they want to.

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Re: Categorization

#5 Post by papillon »

Categories are inevitable - humans create patterns and descriptive terms.

While it is a bad idea from an authorial perspective to go simply "Character X is a tsundere" and think no more about her personality than that, it is not unreasonable to look at your game afterwards and recognise that Character X is kinda tsundere-ish. Certainly players will, and they will use that when talking to each other and helping to identify the kind of games they want to play (or the kind of games they want to AVOID).

If you're writing from a commercial perspective, common tropes and categories can be useful to look at during the development process. Not because you want to pop out a cookie-cutter game of completely shallow characters, but because you want to manage customer expectations. You don't want to be completely predictable but you also don't want to completely disappoint your players.

If you have what looks like a fluffy happy BxG school romance but at the last minute, on every single path, every romantic character does a sudden 180 and kills you/themselves/the entire world, a few players will think this is hilarious but most of them will probably be pissed off, demand their money back, never buy from you again, and tell the world how much you suck. If you want them to appreciate that ending, you probably need to lead them to it more carefully, so it feels right when they get there.

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Re: Categorization

#6 Post by Mink »

What Fawn said. But to be fair, I think the same about games labelled BxG. :/ I mean, if it just said that, "You can hook up with date such-and-such girls" I'd be more inclined to try that. I don't what is is, but simplifying something to GxB, BxG, GxG, BxB, etc., makes me go, "Meeeh." I know, it's weird. (Well, if something's labelled 'yaoi', at this point I expect an angst-ridden clichefest. I'd totally read it if it was the opposite of that, though)

Also, if you can sum up a character in just one word (or two. If it's like, "Yamato Nadeshiko"), then that strikes me as kind of fail on the characterization front. 8|

@Papillon: Like how a movie advertises something and it's the exact OPPOSITE of what you expect?

Edit: On that note, I'd like to say that the game Kira*Kira starts off dark, gets a bit more light-hearted, and then swerves off straight into Crazy Town. Not that bad otherwise, though.
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Re: Categorization

#7 Post by papillon »

Quick, let's edit footage from the movie together so that the trailer looks like a blowing-things-up action-fest when it's in fact a slow-paced drama about a southern family! We'll sell more tickets! ... For the first weekend. Then we run away and hide.

(No, I'm not calling out a particular movie there, just making stuff up.)

People often like a bit of surprise. If your misleading pulls in completely the wrong audience, though...

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Re: Categorization

#8 Post by Anna »

papillon wrote:If you have what looks like a fluffy happy BxG school romance but at the last minute, on every single path, every romantic character does a sudden 180 and kills you/themselves/the entire world, a few players will think this is hilarious but most of them will probably be pissed off, demand their money back, never buy from you again, and tell the world how much you suck. If you want them to appreciate that ending, you probably need to lead them to it more carefully, so it feels right when they get there.
To me that's more a part of terrible story building rather than bad categorization.

I think categories/genres should just be used to describe what kind of story it is, so people can pick the ones they like and ignore the ones they don't like. For example, not everyone may be into horror, so it's convenient if games and what not get labelled with their genre. This of course also means you have to be careful when you say your game is 'this!', like papillon showed :D.

Aside from that, introducing characters like 'This is Miki, she's a tsundere.' is the worst of the worst Q_Q. Please don't do that. Just look at what your story is like and develop characters you like. There's no magical recipe which states 'Thou should use 1 Tsundere, 1 grumpy-turned-nice bishie and one dumb-ass protagonist for it to be a good plot'. Making things less predictable is more interesting as well.

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Re: Categorization

#9 Post by Kura »

Categories and archetypes can be useful at the very beginning and the very end of the creation process--to organize ideas, and then as other people have said, to identify what you've made and help people who will probably like it to find it. The important part is that they stay out of the middle and leave the story and characters to grow organically.

In planning one VN, I knew that I wanted a particularly diverse cast, and in the early stages of character creation, I used some good old archetypes to get a sense of range and difference. It's hard to compare full personalities; it's more doable to say "I want this character to be the cold, standoffish type, and then this character to be rather genki-like, and then this one to be friendly but more mellow." And then you have a starting place to flesh them out a little more. Is the cold character more like the serious, studious kind of cold, or the deviant, I-don't-give-a-damn cold? Maybe the friendly character is the model student type, or the calm laid-back type. And then I decided (using studiousness as a point of contrast the way I used affability as a point of contrast above), let's make the friendly character studious, and base the cold character on the careless delinquent type. The first trick to still having interesting characters is that once you have that basic structure, you mix it up a little with the details, and use the generic as a point of contrast. The "model student" character is a bit less serious than your usual model student, and obsessed with video games; the genki character is into politics. The other trick, though, and probably the single most important thing about character creation, is that once you've got some ideas and you like the look of the framework, you strip all the labels away. If some of the traits start to change the more you think things out, you don't go "but wait, he won't be genki anymore if he's like that," you just roll with it. In writing, you don't go "hmm, this character would react this way because he's a yandere," just "he'd do this because that's how he thinks" (taking into account the full personality).

And then when it's all done and being released, labelling a game with categories makes it easier for people to say "Oh, I think I'd like this game; it has a character who's kind of x and I tend to like characters like that." Of course you can also read a character description that uses no specific labels and see "oh, this character is shy, I like shy characters" but people often find it easier to think about these things in terms of established groups, and are probably grouping things into categories on their own if it's not provided. While categories say nothing about a game's quality, and people often will like games that fall outside of their preferred categories, it helps give some direction.

That said, just like labeling people, categorizing games can be--usually is--a huge limitation. The more you describe in categories and archetypes, the less of the uniqueness of the game at hand shines through. I definitely emphasize that creators make a conscious choice about labeling their work, and think about whether a particular category marks an important aspect of their game before sticking on every label that can apply. For example, in my WIP the two protagonists are a male-male couple, but I'm not labeling it as "BxB" because the romance isn't the point, and I sometimes casually refer to one of the characters as yandere but won't call him that in promoting the game because I want this project to speak for itself rather than drawing any particular type of fans. On the other hand, the VN I mentioned above, if I complete that I may well call it BxB with a genki type and a delinquent type because it's less conceptual and more the kind of project I would want people to play just because it has their favorite character type.

The choice to label a game with categories or not, really, depends on what you expect the audience to get out of it. If it's a complex and highly unique story, categories will misinform and skew--it's not so meaningful to use a "GxB" label on a game that focuses on a deep and non-romantic plot that with side elements of romance, because the "GxB" part isn't really what will determine whether people like it. If it's a simple fun romance, a "GxB" label will appropriately attract people who just want to play a game about a girl finding a boyfriend, and labeling character types will attract people who just want to play a game about wooing a whatever-type.

And I guess one last note, labels like "yandere" and "tsundere" than specifically refer to a change in the character or a below-the-surface personality are indeed be problematic in a different way than static descriptors like "moe" because they give away something that might be otherwise surprising, and so should be handled with special care.

PS: If you want to feel less cheap using archetypes, instead of "tsundere, yandere, moe" you could always use Carl Jung's archetypes.

[and apologies for GIANT WALL OF TEXT.]
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Re: Categorization

#10 Post by salis »

Whether it’s by gameplay, genre, or relationship type, we all agree this type of categorization makes finding games in your personal tastes and avoiding ones that aren't a whole lot easier. Using category labels like BxG, GxB, GxG, etc., advocates your game to a specific audience, allowing them to know from the start what type of romance game it is without having to start the game itself. This is definitely appreciated by those with certain game preferences, but is also imperative for marketing your game.

But publicly categorizing the characters themselves is a different matter, and I agree with Crusher. Never summarize the entirety of a character into a stereotype to your audience! It not only immediately makes the character feel overdone and underdeveloped, but also gives the players possibly false preconceptions of what the character, story, and game is likely to be, taking away from the experience of playing the game itself. Unless your game is a wacky parody that pokes fun at stereotyped characters, I highly discourage describing your characters with labels.

In short, categorizing games is a good thing. Categorizing characters on the other hand… not so much.
Last edited by salis on Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Categorization

#11 Post by Anthy »

I never categorize characters by their personality, but I do categorize them by their roles. "Protagonist" "antagonist" "rival" "mentor figure" "best friend" "love interest" etc. There are no real limitations to how a character looks or acts based on their basic role (generally. Obviously a mentor figure, for example, is either older, more worldly, more experienced... more something, when compared to the protag--otherwise their role would be useless). And if there are multiple potential love interests, they should have some other kind of role to fall back on if the player decides not to pursue their route. Otherwise they end up props.

Continuing with that train of thought... if a character doesn't fulfill a role in the plot, IMO they should either be discarded/fused with another more important character, or changed so that they're more important. Even in games with tons of routes, if there's an overarching storyline everyone should contribute to it in some way. I know some games have 'secret' characters, but I tend to not like them because they usually seem like they were thrown in "just because".

I don't see the point of advertising who-does-what, either, aside from labeling the protagonist as such so people know what the story's perspective is. Just saying "this character is a tsundere" is a really amateur way to describe your own character (especially since there are tons of possible variations of tsundere! Geez). It'd be better to say "s/he has a hard time conveying his/her feelings and often ends up [frustrated/coming off as cold/getting into arguments]" or something along those lines.

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Re: Categorization

#12 Post by Anna »

Anthy wrote:I never categorize characters by their personality, but I do categorize them by their roles. "Protagonist" "antagonist" "rival" "mentor figure" "best friend" "love interest" etc. There are no real limitations to how a character looks or acts based on their basic role
That sounds more logical :). Though I think you only need to emphasize this with a dating sim or where it really matters who your love options are/who your rival is etc. Roles such as 'teacher' become apparent from the character description you would normally give anyway (e.g. 'This is Ed, he's Roy's teacher, he likes etc.').

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