Finding a Focus

Well, it became very quickly apparent that culture is a very, very broad subject to try and explore. There are so many aspects about it that it's impossible to cover. It left me scratching my head a little bit, still asking myself too many questions about it.

After all my rambling thoughts on culture within games/character design, Jim then asked how I would explain what I wanted to do in 30 words. I found I couldn't do it. We had to find a focus. 

I think what I was ultimately aiming for without realizing was the exploration of the character-to-player relation. Players want to feel that they connect with the characters whose role they take in a game, and by extension want to relate to the whole world of characters. A compelling game should have compelling characters so that the player doesn't feel detached, as opposed to engaged with the world and the characters within it. 

In regards to traditional and more modern cultures, Josh mentioned the Fifth Element as a counter argument to what I said about more modern cultures being more present in the sci-fi genre than fantasy genre.

60's influence in Fifth Element

However, that inadvertently supports what I said really, in my opinion, because while the presence of 60's culture is apparent in Fifth Element, the film is sci-fi, and set in the 23rd century! ;)

So to summarize, my intention as of right now is to explore the impact, value and influence of culture in character design and to evaluate the relation between player and character as a result of cultural presence.