Characters

The original crew that Kelsier puts together is a somewhat ragtag band of thieves on a mission far bigger than themselves. Even when their task seems impossible they find ways to succeed against the odds, and you can’t help but root for them. Naturally the crew, as well as all the other characters from the book will make their way into the game in one form or another, but the topic that is of particular interest to me regarding characters is playable characters.

The obvious choice for the main playable character is Vin. In addition to being the main protagonist of the story, she is the only character who fits seamlessly into the dual natured gameplay of brawling and balls. Additionally, the way she learns and grows in her skills as a Mistborn naturally lends itself to the progressive leveling nature commonly found in games of this genre.

Unfortunately Vin’s natural place as the player character leads us to something of a problem. Vin isn’t always the main focus of the story, Kelsier, Sazed, Ham, Breeze, and the rest, all do quite a bit, often times when Vin isn’t even around.

Initially I toyed with the idea of the player controlling several different characters throughout the game. You might spend most of your time as Vin, but also a significant chunk as Kelsier. This presents a number of opportunities and challenges from a game design perspective. Most notably, Kelsier is an experienced Mistborn, while Vin is not. Any time the player plays as Kelsier they would reasonably have access to the full extent of Mistborn abilities that Vin does not yet have. While this could be fun, having access to more power in a brawl, it becomes challenging when the game hasn’t yet explained to the player how to use an ability because Vin hasn’t learned it yet.

We could simply teach the player everything at the start, but this kind of “straight into the deep end” tutorial can be overwhelming, and then taking away that power for a majority of the game can be frustrating. Alternatively we could handicap Kelsier, only letting the player use him to the same extent they could use Vin, but this cheapens his role and isn’t narratively accurate.

The one point where I think it would be feasible, and arguably the most exciting and dramatic, to have the player play as Kelsier, is when he fights the inquisitors and the Lord Ruler. At this point he has seen Vin fully trained (meaning the player should reasonably know all his abilities) and it lets the player become fully involved in one of the most climactic points in the story.

As fun as it could be to have the player from time to time take control of the rest of the crew, it really just doesn’t fit from a gameplay perspective, aside from the one specific point mentioned above. Ultimately I think it would be easier to use cutscenes and dialogue to fill narrative gaps presented by having a singular player character and point of view than it would be to establish other characters and their moves.