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26 Jul 2010 What is in a name
posted in General Design
Written by Adalwulf
July 26, 2010, 08:22:00 PM
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What’s in a Name? While it can be sometimes cute to name your characters something absurd, it is generally a bad idea. Just like words, names carry meanings with them as well, which can be used to define a characters personality, involvement to the storyline, or relationship with something else. Aimless Naming Naming your character something silly like Kaiyonosuke or Shawndaliqua normally makes the audience criticize you as the names generally have no meaning or just sound completely foolish. This is generally whats seen in a majority of Rpg Maker projects. Additionally, even if the name has a meaning, or isn’t made up on the spot, you can’t… well rather you shouldn’t name a character something from one particular setting and have the entire storyline play out with no particular reason for the odd inconsistency other than it just being there. (The general offender is a character with a Japanese name thrown into a European/Medieval setting with no one else have a similar name in the entirety of the game. This isn’t limited to the playable characters, but even non playable characters as well. Of course, there are obvious exceptions to this such as Joke projects that make fun of this or simple projects that aren’t heavily focused on names with meanings and such. That said, unless your game is built to be a more comical than serious in nature, you should name each and every character as if you were naming a newborn child. Having a villain in a game named something absurd like Magimook without any reasoning behind it takes away from his overall effectiveness as a believable villain whereas a villain named Nicolae Carpathia (from Left Behind btw) is a pretty clever way to point out his origins (I recall in the bible that people that claim to be Christians but don’t truly follow the teachings are referred to as Nicolaitans in Revelations). Concept Naming Though it’s not required, you can name and probably should name everyone with a idea in mind. For instance, the Breath of Fire series always has Ryuu and Nina in their games. Ryuu refers to a Dragon as his name more or less means that and Nina refers to Angels, in the less noticed variant of the name Seraphina (Nina itself means fire while Seraphina means the fiery ones which is a reference to angels.) In this particular example, names only to what the character represents. In other instances, naming a character can be used to define that characters personality and other traits they may possess. I use a combination of both personally while designing characters. Notice the naming scheme in games such as Phoenix Wright where you can tell a characters general personality by their name Windy Oldbag. Antagonistic characters aren’t immune from this either as a lot of movies use variations of common names to refer to them, (such as Louis Cypher/Lucifer from Angel Heart). An example form my own project, Diana Lècuyer which roughly means heavenly or divine shield bearer. is a character who is currently designed in the image of a paladin. She is descendant from a family of priest who instead of carrying on tradition, picked up a shield in order to become someone that defended people, leaving her previous family behind while retaining only her first name. Even when naming creatures, common enemies and bosses, you have to take into consideration how your naming them. You can’t be fighting a spider and call it a Mexican Cockroach and vice versa. Take the time to name these things, enemies, items, skills, it’s not just limited to whats in front of you. Conclusion A lot more can be added to this article and most of these are just my own thoughts. I’m sure others have other methods of naming characters that I haven’t even touched on so go ahead and contribute if you feel like it. This is more or less all I have to say for the time being since, while I am studying game design and programming, I’m still no professional in the matter. Links 
10 Jul 2010 Empathy
posted in Life Lessons
Written by Adalwulf
July 10, 2010, 03:55:00 AM
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Quote Empathy denotes a deep emotional understanding of another’s feelings or problems, while sympathy is more general and can apply to small annoyances or setbacks. You may be curious as to why this blog is on empathy today. Recently I crossed a line I shouldn’t have during an emotional time with a friend that made me question who I really was and if I really understood how they felt. One of the things I’ve been pretty well at is being empathic to those around me that have gone through the exact same, or very similar circumstances. This time however, even though I’ve experienced the exact same thing countless times in my own life, I was unable to connect with that person and was essentially uncaring to their situation. It could possibly be that experiencing it so many times has left me numb to the feeling, but that personally feels like an excuse and an attempt to run away from the truth. I honestly wonder if I can truly be empathetic to this kind of situation, or if I’ve been running away from it all of this time in order to avoid the reality behind it. So as I write this blog, I feel it’s time I did a little soul searching to see who or what I really am. The damage is already done and the scars may never heal, but I’m truly sorry if I’ve been one of the many negative influences in their lives as we can all do without more bullshit on top of the the bullshit already in our lives. In addition to the above, like a friend said it was a “Perfect example of why’s it’s better to think before you say something.” As what comes from our mouths may not only hurt that person, but those around us as well.
06 Jul 2010 Forum Reboot and StuffDue to a number of running issues with the original forum concerning the admin panel (That I broke) and the hundreds of non member accounts, I decided to reboot the forum with a fresh install.
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