GAMES WITH CHARACTER
An Article by PokeGravy.com

Mario, Sonic, Link. Three of a multitude of well-known characters in video games. Hardly anyone doesn't know or recognize them. This article brings the art of creating appealing characters to the world of click gaming, and provides some ideas on how and why to create characters.

First of all, a character or cast of characters will make your game stand out. People often collect games with their favorite characters because they know and trust games with that character. While characters achieve icon status in the video game world, rarely are such great characters found within the huge amount of click freeware games. If more people created characters to use in a series of games, they might see how it could help with recognition.

A good character will be one that the player gets to know and root for. If they are rooting for that character to achieve his goal then they will enjoy the game a whole lot more. When creating a character, make sure to make it so the player can relate to him/her in some way...this will make it easier and more enjoyable to take on the role of that character.
For instance will take Poke & Gravy, whose games are just beginning to make a mark on the click community with predicted sucess to come. Poke & Gravy were not created only for games, but that is perhaps better. Since they are comic strip characters they have to be well rounded. The player can relate to a hungry cheerful Poke in Poke's BBQ, the determined Gravy in Turkey Sub and Turkey Sub II, and the "friendly" competition of the two characters in Poke & Gravy Party. All these are pieces of their personality, not the whole thing. The beauty is that as more and more games come out, the characters' personalities will be brought out more and more with each game.

This use of appealing characters makes for not only more exciting games but even more importantly a more exciting line of games. More people might look forward to your upcoming games as they get to know the characters.

Designing the look of the character is also very important. You can't just doodle down a random guy or dog or something for a good character. Your character needs to be instantly recognizable. Going back to the world of video games, no one can miss Mario's mustache, sideburns, red hat and blue overalls. Mario is kept simple and fun. Those are the key words. Don't overload your character with a million tiny details. If he is a knight a suit of armor and a sword will do; don't weigh him down with a suit of armor, a shield, sword, mace, dagger, nunchucks and a bow, all that will ruin the simple look. With animal charaters (everybody loves animals?) make them cute and give them attitude. An expressive face is good on any character so the player knows what the character is feeling or thinking.

So think about giving your character as a gift to the world. Believe me, your characters become like your children, and you can all have a lot of fun together! Good Luck!