Empathic Characters for Digital Games: A Prototype Proposal

This paper seeks to introduce a toolkit designed for game designers and creative professionals, providing resources to facilitate the development of characters for empathy communication. This research project is conducted according to the principles of grounded theory and describes the process of converting a research hypothesis into an instrument. A survey was developed and carried out in gamers’ communities to identify potential correlations between gamer’s attributes and playable Characters’ characteristics, yet in the survey analyses, no correlations were identified between variables. Notwithstanding, the character mentioned as the most Emphatic one was Character 2B from the digital game NieR: Automata. Further analysis of 2B’s story within the game world led to the following hypothesis: Empathy is information, and the better the character’s network of information is communicated, the more Empathy the Player will feel. This toolkit is an analog instrument composed of a set of cards with instructions divided into four topics: the character’s personality (15 cards), the character’s life foundation (16 cards), the character’s physical appearance (6 cards), and the character path and conflict (14 cards). The toolkit was evaluated in the classroom context, proving to be a good creative tool for character creation, yet the instructional design guidance needs to be addressed. According to the theory proposed in this paper, if all the cards are completed and their information is introduced into the design of a playable character for a digital game, we will have a character who can communicate empathy to the gamers.