Characterization in Christminster: A Critical Essay
Jacob Solomon Weinstei
I've recently finished Christminster, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's
unusually strong in story and characterization, and I wanted to share my
thoughts about how it succeeds (and, occasionally, fails) in those areas.
For now, I'm going to look at characterization. I hope to have a chance
to discuss plot before too long.
This is NOT a review. It's a critical essay, and it's written with the
assumption that the reader has either played the game through to
completion or doesn't mind having plot and puzzles ruined. In other word,
spoilers ahead.
Gareth Rees has a knack for characterization unusual for a writer of IF
games. Both the player character of Christminster and the collection of
NPCs are vivid and believable. And he manages to create these characters
without the excessive use of "cut scenes"--long passages of
non-interactive dialogue. How does Gareth do it?
In many ways, the techniques for characterization in IF are the same as
those for traditional fiction. Character can be shown through dialogue;
when Jarboe says, "Well, well, well. What do we
see here? A little girl skulking in Malcolm Spencer's bedroom. Who is
she, then? Spencer's floosie, come to look for him? Is that what she is?
She looks just like his type," we immediately know a great deal about his
outlook on life.
Traditional fiction also defines characters through their
actions--something Gareth also does well. Ask the Master for a book, and
you recieve _Flower Fairies_: "The book is by Cicely Barker, and contains
a set of nauseously sweet poems about fairies who live in flowers. The
Master must have been very contemptuous of your intelligence to have
given you this."
Although dialogue and action are techniques borrowed from traditional
fiction, they function
slightly differently in IF. When the master gives you the book, you, the
player, examine it and wonder whether it will be useful to you, just as
Christabel would. A printed story could describe her thought processes;
only IF can make the reader undergo them his or her self.
As I said, both dialogue and action are traditional methods of
characterization. Let's take a look at some things Christminster, the game,
does the Christminster, the novel, couldn't.
In my opinion, puzzles are one of the single most useful tools for
creating character in IF. When you're playing a game, you want to
advance. You want to get past whatever obstacles are in your way. When
you can't, you feel personal frustration--not merely the sympathetic
frustration you feel when the goals of a fictional character are blocked.
And so, when an NPC helps you solve a puzzle, you feel a gratitude
towards that character. He or she becomes sympathetic, and somehow more
real. I think the realism comes from the fact that when we feel emotion
towards something, we must convince ourselves on some level that it can
perceive the emotion, lest we feel silly.
In Christminster, I'm thinking particularly of Professor Wilderspin. In
his study, he seems nice enough. But it's only when one gets trapped in
the secret passage with him that he seems charming. You want to get out
of that dammed darkness, dammit, and it's frustrating to be stuck there.
While you're trying to figure your way out, his stories help pass the
time. They save you, the player, from the doldrums of seeing nothing but
"you fumble your way in that direction," just as they save you,
Christabel Spencer, from the doldrums of seeing nothing but darkness.
And when, with his help, you escape from the darkness, you are grateful.
He's helped you, the player, solve a puzzle, bringing you closer to your
goal of finished the game; and he's helped you, Christabel Spencer,
escape from the darkness, bringing you closer to your goal of finding
your brother.
As a result, you, the player, feel an affection for him that mirrors that
which you, Christabel, would feel.
For this reason, it's a little disappointing to find, once you're in the
Secret Room, that "Wilderspin is too busy examining the room to pay much
attention to you." It would have been more in his character, I think, for
him to point out the exciting and interesting things he's finding as he
examines the room.
Puzzles are an even more effective tool when it comes to defining the
character of the player character. In fact, they're one of the only
effective tools that IF has for this at the moment; I find cut scenes to
be distracting and ineffective.
Puzzles are so useful because they offer the IF author an opportunity to
influence your actions in a subtle way. With a cut scene, the author
tells you what you've done. With a puzzle, the author makes you do it.
The best example of this in Christminster is in Malcolm's room. When you
enter, you're told it's been searched in a thorough and destructive
manner. This implies two things: first, that there's something
important hidden in the room; and second, that it's not going to be
hidden amongst the rubble, which has already been searched.
Given this information, you know to turn your attention to those objects
mentioned in the room descriptions. The clever player will soon examine
the window and find the ivy below it, after which you will examine
the ivy and be told:
When you were children, Malcolm could never hide his toys from you for
long... Leaning precariously out of the window, you search around
in the ivy, and sure enough, your hand lights upon a book hidden
among the leaves!
Notice how cleverly Gareth has tricked you into playing a certain kind of
character. Without the information that Malcolm could never hide his toys
from Christabel, it might be hard to believe that she could walk into his
room and immediately find an object that two desperate men could not. But
that little tidbit of family history reminds you, the player, that you,
Christabel, know Malcolm better than anybody. By subtly manuevering you,
the player, to look in the ivy, Gareth has tricked you into acting
the roll of the clever sibling.
And since many of the other puzzles involve looking books up in the
library, the player ends up taking the roll of a resourceful and
clever--if slightly bookish--young woman. Obviously, Malcolm's academic
bent runs in the family.
Unfortunately, not all the puzzles keep Christabel in character. The
worst offender is an early one. Would Christabel's first reaction, on
seeing a window, really be to throw a rock into it? Gareth would have
done better either to have her release the parrot accidentally, or to
give her a stronger motivation for her vandalism. He could have
accomplished the former by having her, say, climb a tree and accidentally
knock a branch through the window. He could have accomplished the latter
by saying something in the introduction to the effect of, "After
wandering around outside the college gates for several hours in an
unsuccessful attempt to enter, you have a sudden premonition that Malcolm
is in horrible danger. You must rescue him, whatever it takes."
(By contrast, Christabel's violent use of the knife in the
endgame is a perfectly plausible act of desperation.)
Despite the occasional lapse, Gareth has succeeded in
putting together the most believable assembly of characters I've yet
seen in IF. I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
-Jacob Weinstein
Bruce Stephens
> Despite the occasional lapse, Gareth has succeeded in putting
> together the most believable assembly of characters I've yet seen in
> IF. I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
I'd like to put in a vote for the two minor characters at the
beginning: the policeman and the busker. I assume they're only
capable of saying a dozen or so things, but they do so exceptionally
effectively: the policeman's intent watching of the busker, and the
bit with the toffee, was quite lovely. Characters quite as endearing
as Floyd from Planetfall, I think, although Floyd probably has a
little more to say.
--
Bruce Institute of Advanced Scientific Computation
br...@liverpool.ac.uk University of Liverpool
http://supr.scm.liv.ac.uk/~bruce/
Gareth Rees
> I assume they're only capable of saying a dozen or so things
$ for X in bungay busker constable edward jarboe master wilderspin; do
> echo $X: `grep -i $X *.inf | wc -l`;
> done
bungay: 159
busker: 121
constable: 111
edward: 309
jarboe: 134
master: 180
wilderspin: 161
$
--
Gareth Rees