Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Blocked by Henchmen
You don't generally get to start a video game by jumping straight to the fi-
nal boss battle. You have to work your way up to it, dealing with multiple
lesser enemies and obstacles over the hours of play time, before you've
earned the right (and learned the moves!) to challenge the Villain himself.
The Villain is generally outside the reach of the Hero's grasp for most of
the story. Henchmen provide interim challenges for the Hero, with per-
haps a brief interaction between Hero and Villain early on to demonstrate
how much farther the Hero has to go before being ready for a real con-
frontation. But always keep in mind, the ultimate conflict between Hero
and Villain is something the audience looks forward to, so don't miss the
opportunity to build their anticipation for it.
Desire and Motivation
One of the traps writers often fall into with a Villain is to not really think the
character through beyond a very superficial level—resulting in a two-di-
mensional, obstacle-generating plot device, instead of living, breathing
character with wants, desires, and plans of his own.
It is backwards to decide what obstacles you want the Hero to over-
come, then simply have “the bad guy” conveniently throw those particular
obstacles into the Hero's path. As with all characters, you must instead
start with this question: what does this person (the Villain) want or need?
Desire drives everything a person does, and if you want characters
whose actions ring true with how people really behave, they must also be
driven solely by their desires. This is why actors stereotypically ask their
director, “What's my motivation?” Without that information, there's no way
to know how to act.
The audience needs to comprehend what the Villain wants and be able
to understand and, on some level at least, appreciate that desire. This
doesn't mean the Villain can't want something bad or that the audience
has to agree with it. It just needs to make some kind of (possibly twisted)
sense. At the heart of every Villain's motives, there is usually a kernel of
something that is theoretically good, or at least that the audience can re-
late to.
In movies:
▪
Aliens
: The Alien Queen wants her offspring to thrive and will fight to
protect them.
