Character design: the case of characters in a hybrid serious game called FlavourGame

Abstract

FlavourGame is a hybrid board game, from the serious games category, which aims to promote among children, discussion and awareness for taking correct choices in their nutrition. As part of this project, the design of the characters that make up the game’s narrative is being developed. This process, which is still undergoing, so far involved, in a first stage, a small literature review on the process of Character Design, in order to identify the existence of some kind of transversal methodology to follow. In a second stage, the main psychological and emotional characteristics of the characters were determined, so that, in a third stage, the visual design of these characters was studied. Finally, and in a fourth stage, different components of the Design of the characters were evaluated with three samples of the target audience. Thus, this article presents the theoretical framework connected to character design, describes the so far undergone creative and design process of FlavourGame’s characters and presents three small stages of the characters’ design assessment with children between the ages of 10 to 12. Throughout the article, we also identify and describe the iterations and changes that weremade to the character design according to both the opinions expressed by the children regarding their preferences and the collaboration of a graphic designer in the character design process.