Journal Entry 26: Game Character

You’ve got a time and place for your game, and you’ve got a conflict for your game, now you need a character for your game. Of course the real character is the person playing the game, but what character does he or she adopt? Is he a hungry happy face like in Pacman? A soldier? A chicken? Describe the character. Go beyond what is seen in the actual game and give your character a history—a “backstory.” Then describe him or her (or it) physically—what does he/she/it look, smell, sound, taste, and feel like? What feelings does he/she/it have? What is his/her/its motivation in the game?

My game has a very cute and delicious "backstory" (writing it makes me hungry, seriously). Once upon a time, in Candy Land, there lived a happy Candy Man who is strawberry and vanilla flavored (yum!). One day, poor Candy Man was captured by a cruel, cruel human who happened to appear on the Sugar Shore of Candy Land with a huge, huge boat. The human was a sailor whose boat got stuck in a horrific storm and all of his crew is dead or gone except for him, who ended up in Candy Land. When the Candy-Landians hear of the scary candy-eating human, they all hid in their homes made of cookies and frosting. Unfortunately, Candy Man didn't hear about the scary human because he was out hunting chocolate bunnies in the "Forest of Mint Ice Cream Trees". He was captured by the human and the human wants to bring the Candy Man back to the human world for all the other humans to see. While Candy Man was on the human's ship, he sneaked out the window while the human was sleeping, but falls into the ocean. He must escape before he dissolves in the sea water (water dissolves sugar) and has to avoid all the monsters under the sea who wants to eat him, after all, monsters also like sweets. Lucky for the Candy Man, there is a special door under sea that is rumored to be connected to Candy Land, because many of the candy adventurers have gone through that door to explore the human world. What the Candy Man doesn't know is, the doors just lead to another world and he has to go through fifteen doors in order to get back to his Candy Land (and that is the levels in my game).