Quote: Original post by zyrolasting
I don't know if I feel this was because I just got out of a very long thread involving something like this, but it does seem you have to be mighty careful about how you can run with an illogical idea. A long time ago I painted myself in a corner when I tried to make a race that had no war, was brilliant and totally equal... Working communism. I had nothing to stand up to the Bystander Effect or coercion. I actually threw in a military despite their pacifism. Boy, am I glad those days are over. Just something to keep in mind, since it seems the more difficult the concept in the real world, the more facts you have to account for when trying to solidify it in a story.

1984 is about a communist state in perpetual peace (the wars are suggested to be fabrications). Everybody is equal because nobody has any power. This closely resembles your pacifist, communist race. And it works as a story.

Thanks for the advice it's been really helpful. I've got some ideas for a good story now. That's a good idea to not make my favorite characters overpowered. After all some of the players might hate that specific character.

Quote: 1984 is about a communist state in perpetual peace (the wars are suggested to be fabrications). Everybody is equal because nobody has any power. This closely resembles your pacifist, communist race. And it works as a story.

I was also trying to work elements of a monarchy in my old design. I won't go into details, but trust me, my way sucked. I may do fine if I were to try it again, though. [smile]

Quote: Thanks for the advice it's been really helpful. I've got some ideas for a good story now. That's a good idea to not make my favorite characters overpowered. After all some of the players might hate that specific character.

I would personally, but children and preteens seem to enjoy them. Despite Sonic The Hedgehog's inability to stick with a single style or genre, I think he's still is a real winner with the young. The target audience still plays a part here.

Don't forget about JDS0's mention of cramming the basis of a story (like a noun) down the player's throat. I feel that's also important from a different direction.

Young people, even up into teens seem to revel in the awesomeness of something instead of be annoyed by its cheesiness. I see this in anime rather often. The most popular shows have some of the most cliche characters, situations, and relationships. I can see them a mile coming and they make me wretch but they really are well liked. For instance, there is a cliche character who is somehow super-powerful but disarms with a cute grin and chuckle. This characteristic expression is a slight head tilt (often but not always) and always a closed eye grin with a slight chuckle. The character is also sometimes just plain insane, such as a super violent fighter that otherwise looks like an innocent child. This character is in so many animes its unbelievable, yet they are favored characters by teen girls, especially when the character is a girl. There are quite a few stock characters like this and in some animes ALL the characters, plot elements, and relationships between the stock characters are this cliched. What you end up with is a Sailor Moon copy. And kids love it.

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to get at here is that you need to pick an audience and look at what they like because what is cheesy to a 20 year old is awesome and cool to a 14 year old.

Quote: Anyway, I guess what I am trying to get at here is that you need to pick an audience and look at what they like because what is cheesy to a 20 year old is awesome and cool to a 14 year old.

It does show how you can communicate with less developed minds. Kids seem to be more interested in outward appearance until they start wondering about the "why" behind what they love. Similar logic can be used with rap music. Sometimes I put my face in my hands and try to register that the stuff actually sells. I personally feel manga can have incredible story elements and some of the most gorgeous artwork I've ever seen, but once you get to anime, something goes wrong. With the unfinished look and the annoying portrayal of character, I found it worthy to whine about in a blog entry. I am in agreement that it's frequently "kids stuff", but with the sick material it can have to show it's extremes (tentacles, anyone?), I feel more needs to be done to broaden it's horizon so older folks would be more impressed.

Quote: Original post by zyrolasting

Quote: Cheesiness is somewhat subjective. The best you can do is just continually, honestly, critically evaluate your story, and backtrack at the first sign of divergence into cheesiness. Oh, and be unique.

Well, everything is subjective, including what is "unique" and "honest". It would help to toss out what seems cheesy to each of us to try and disambiguate the topic a little. (Although sunandshadow hit the nail on the head in regards to target audience)

True. I'm just saying that in artistic matters, you have to be able to trust yourself. This is related to the whole target-audience thing and other personal taste issues. But if you want to make good work that others appreciate, you have to expand your perspective and look at your work critically, because you're the only one who really can. You have to be able to make cuts in the story that hurt a little, but make it better.

Quote: I'm just saying that in artistic matters, you have to be able to trust yourself. This is related to the whole target-audience thing and other personal taste issues. But if you want to make good work that others appreciate, you have to expand your perspective and look at your work critically, because you're the only one who really can. You have to be able to make cuts in the story that hurt a little, but make it better.

Agreed. It's half the reason why I'm suggesting we bring in more absolute views.
As an existentialist I'm really fighting the urge to write my infamous TL;DR, but I'll summarize by saying if we ask others how to define cheesy, I don't feel we would be covering as much ground as opposed to just plain saying what we ourselves find flawed. We understand we don't have control of the story, but we do seem to indirectly help make a better one. 'Tis the beauty of feedback. [smile]

Well in the spirit of saying what i think is flawed: I don't like it when characters have obvious contradictions of behavior, mood, or motive. It usually seems like the character is trying to fit more than one role or stereotype at once and they don't mesh well. For instance, airheaded giggly girls in anime suddenly becoming serious when something happens when any normal person with an airhead personality would probably gasp, say something idiotic and run. Manic-depressives and other sorts of cyclical or otherwise alternating behavior for well founded reasons are ok though.

I remember the woman who lived with Master Roshi in the Dragonball series had this problem. I heard the word "bipolar" tossed around by peers, but I don't remember if that was explicitly mentioned in the show. Inconsistent character seems to appeal to the writer as it seems to bring in that LOL RANDUM factor that is quickly becoming old to me, while still fetching the big bucks with teens. On the other hand, the option of splitting the personalities to multiple characters may mean double trouble. I'd rather have an annoying character with an explosive hidden temper than two characters who are both annoying from two different directions. ("My God, there's two of 'em!")

Honestly, I'd say avoid both routes.

[Edited by - zyrolasting on December 12, 2009 2:33:56 PM]

"Randumb" isn't an issue if its done right. But often its taken along side the serious side of the character. In anime the way I don't mind it is when they clearly change animation styles to that chibi or manga look with huge exaggeration. Then it becomes clear that this is hyperbole. Translating that to a game may be difficult unless you have good voice actors that can make a clear distinction between humorous exaggeration and the normal to serious side of the character. It loses its usefulness no matter how it is done though if its over used to the point where it becomes hard to see the real character under the joke scenes.