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Ah, right that also makes me think of a question!

Characters! How do you decide their personality, their looks, background and stuff?
Are you given a key word like 'mage' and 'warrior' and then can just think out something or are there more specifics involved?
Or are you given the image first and then go make a character built upon that? (We already know Jack has dark haired woman preferences and light haired men XD)

It changes from game to game, because in some cases I had already all the characters done (Spirited Heart 2 for example) for Loren instead had just some sketches. In general I write in the plot outline what I think could be a fitting personality but I'm pretty open minded and I like to discuss with writers and hear what they think.
Fun anecdote: Rei originally was just an enemy. The sprite was called "elfranger". Aleema looking at my romances list suggested that the game was missing some cool GxB character and we decided to pick that elf ranger sprite, who later became Rei the famous assassin playboy

Aleema wrote:Welcome, sleepykitty! :D

Aw, thanks, Aleema. Pleased to meet you. ^_^v

wildcard wrote:Ah, right that also makes me think of a question!
Or are you given the image first and then go make a character built upon that? (We already know Jack has dark haired woman preferences and light haired men XD)

In my case, all of Spirited Heart 2's characters were already drawn. So I basically looked at the image and wrote down what kind of personality traits came to me for each character, along with Jack's input. I won't reveal too much (I'll leave details, etc, up to Jack =) ) but for example... i.e. Thofte, who appeared in the original game. Since he's already an existing character, I tried to make his personality similar enough so that people who played the first Spirited Heart would be familiar with him, but there's also new traits (and scenarios) to add to his character. So, yay, an updated Thofte to match his new art. ^^v



And I'm glad you guys added the 'elfranger' as Rei. <3 I love Rei. :D And he looks awesome in the updated art.

I have to say that seeing a picture of the character really helps. I'm given basic stuff to work with, but the characters only start to come alive when I see their picture (else, I picture them vividly in my head!). Just the other day I was looking at character sketches for a future game, and I instantly understood who I was looking at - when before I wasn't settling on any sort of interpretation of the character. Now I know who I want them to be!

In Spirited Heart Girls Love edition, I actually wrote everything and then I got to see the art. A bit backwards, but I think it worked out.

Aleema wrote: In Spirited Heart Girls Love edition, I actually wrote everything and then I got to see the art. A bit backwards, but I think it worked out.

Yes that was weird indeed But for all future games will try to have the art first or at least about at the same time when writers are asked to write, otherwise I'm pretty sure that is much harder !

Jack you say that you have bad english, so if your not from the U.S then where are you from if not too personal.

I'm from the insanely hot Italy

And I'm from Canada. So I never experienced those heat waves everyone seemed to have had this summer. ._. I did visit Italy (Milan etc) one summer and holy cow does it get hot.

And I agree with Aleema that having pictures of the characters help. When I write, I always have a picture of the character in the corner of the screen.

Random user popping out of nowhere here.

Answering the newest question, it depends. I usually make a new character just out from a mere concept, like maybe a metaphor in which the character can be compared to. Then I work from there... usually the character image works too, because I can tell the possible attitudes and personalities he/she can have from the clothes he/she wear or the way he/she carried him/herself and even the body type.

If I start with the personalities... the appearance, I still depend on other factors like culture, attitude, ethnicity, etc. A lot of things can affect it. :3

New to the forums, thought I'd jump in here.

It's nice to hear the writers talking about their craft!

What about the writer for that Roommates game? I hear you actually just hired 1,000 monkeys and 1,000 typewriters. Is that true?