Character Investigation: Androids

[coyotecraft]

Easy mode: An android pulled out of a junk pile.
This is your basic boy and his dog set up. Taking a thing in and caring for it create an automatic emotional connection the audience can relate to. Bonus: Mysterious origin story.

Hard mode: An android built from scratch.
Some assembly required. Batteries not included. To make this work you're going to need some kind of Robotic Engineer Scientist type character and a purpose for the android's creation. Although "to be human" is good enough, it doesn't drive the story forward as well as "combating an alien menace."

Expert mode: An android bought from a store.
Well that's just not interesting at all, and it's easy to see why. Usually top-of-the-line or prototype models are escaped or stolen. Or maybe even won though gambling or a trade. Obtaining something by ordinary means is just too mundane. I've seen/read stories where an android comes with the ship as a kind of interface or a walking pair of keys.
But of course, they are made unique via a defect or glitch.

 

[Xilef]

The manga/anime Chobits does each of these. Main character finds android in trash, support characters have either built theirs or bought theirs from a store.

Despite being on the ecchi side of things, I find Chobits to be a really good story about androids and it's helped me figure out a few things with my game's android-like characters.

 

[coyotecraft]

I must have read Chobits 10 years ago. Chii was the only android that had any real depth because of her origin and circumstances.

The other persocoms were quirky and adorable for comic relief, which is fine for side characters. But for a main character I think you need more than just "personality". That's a problem I see in IdeaFactory|CompileHeart games, it's all bicker & banter. Chatbox simulators.

I guess the thing I want to focus on is emotional payout.

 

[Xilef]

I've only watched the anime series, which I re-watched last week actually.
I was thinking of Yuzuki from the anime, the Persocom Kokubunji created resemble his dead sister right down to her decision making and there's a good amount of story around that in the anime.
Then there's Ueda who bought a Persocom from a shop and the story around that.
And Shinbo who bought his Persocom and upgraded it, who sees them as tools and computers and does not see them as people to fall in love with, and there's a load of story about that.

I wouldn't be surprised if the manga didn't have that kind of depth and was just silly ecchi reading, but the anime really did give me a lot to think about with the idea of androids in stories and it's helped me a lot with figuring out how the characters in my current game will work.

 

[coyotecraft]

I suppose the thing to focus on is their relationship with humans. Or rather, the humans' relationship with the android.

 

[coyotecraft]

Its worth looking at doll, puppet, and golem characters.