Tales from Noveria
For my final year project, I created a narrative-based card game, "Tales from Noveria" with two versions: one where you play as an avatar and one as a character. The purpose of this project was to explore player agency and the extent to which players empathise and identify with playable characters. Avatars are named characters with predetermined personalities, backstories and goals, while characters are player-created, meaning that players can choose their personality, backstory and goals. Through this project, I learnt that avatars require more empathy as players have to put themselves in another person's shoes, while characters explore identity, as players often create alternate versions of themselves. On top of this, I learnt how important the player is in empathising and identifying with playable characters, ultimately proving that agency is not the only factor that affects it.