More general design nonsense tonight (it comes back to gaming eventually, stick with me here), but I was smiling walking out of seeing Wall-E thinking about the character designs for Wall-E and Eva. On the surface, they’re simple enough. One’s a boy. The other a girl. One’s old. One’s new. But the comparisons just don’t stop there. They keep going, becoming a sort of design excercise. Almost every category is an opposite from the other. Just make a list for one, and then make sure the other one is the opposite.
Wall-E
- Boy
- Old
- Square
- Warm (colors)
- Rough
- Dirty
- Ground-based
- Funny
- Collects garbage
Eva
- Girl
- New
- Round (ovoid really)
- Cold (colors)
- Smooth
- Clean
- Flies
- Serious
- Collects lifeforms
I’m entertained just wondering if this is what the designers worked with before starting the sketches for the characters, or if it just worked out that way. I’m inclined to think that these characteristics are by design, since it’s such a pervasive theme running between the characters.
I was wondering if anyone in videogames was giving this level of thought to game design, rather than just doing some “cool sketches” for their characters as a sort of sounding board for the design process, when I remembered the Team Fortress 2 Blog, where Gabe and company talk about design goals in the abstract long before they get around to actually designing things.
I think this sort of planning goes beyond a GDD or just general design docs. This is some very high level goal planning. Anyone work somewhere other than Pixar or Valve who does this sort of thing?
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Haze // Jul 28, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I enjoyed WALL-E. After watching it, I found myself considering it’s various social messages and Pixar’s unusual, but effective, decision to make the movie with so little dialogue, but I didn’t think much about the design work that went into the movie. I’m now, very much so, looking forward to buying the DVD and watching the special features.
Here’s another possible comparison:
WALL-E: constructive,
Eva: destructive.
2 Bookmarks about Ism // Sep 10, 2008 at 6:30 am
[...] - bookmarked by 4 members originally found by Maxwell26 on 2008-08-19 Opposites Attract http://www.game-ism.com/2008/07/21/opposites-attract/ - bookmarked by 5 members originally found [...]
3 Sevorge // Sep 16, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I’m sorry that I have to be so nitpicky, but the female [?] robot’s name is Eve. NOT Eva. Wall-E pronounces it EV-A because of his inferior speech unit or whatever. It was meant to be a small joke; now there are throngs of people who are incorrect because they can’t understand a joke [including my parents]. Sorry. Mini-rant there. I’m okay now though.
4 In Defense of the Prince // Jan 3, 2009 at 1:47 pm
[...] Now, some folks might wonder, why would I like the Prince being shallow? I like it because I think he isn’t shallow. He intentionally sidesteps questions about his past. While vague, he speaks volumes with his posture and his bravado. While we don’t know if he is an actual Prince in the traditional Matriarchal/Patriarchal system sense (and he very well may be the spoiled adventuring prince type), we do know one thing about him: He is a Prince of Thieves. He throws us off by constantly talking about King’s ransoms worth of gold that he could have had. Carpets that would have been this thick. The women! Oh, the women he could have and has had. All of his intentionally false bravado (with a twinge of ironic comedic self deprication) leads to the eventual realization, which occurs in both the Prince and the Player at both the same time, that he has grown to want something else. Obviously, he’s falling in love with Elika, either because of her perfect chased attitude (sweet 25 and never been kissed, or loved for that matter) or because she’s his complete opposite. [...]
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