Link, user-centred designer: Game characters as transcendent models

TL;DR

This paper examines how game characters like Link serve as transcendent models reflecting and shaping player identities, values, and orientations beyond diegetic narratives, through a case study and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that game characters encode tacit, nondiegetic value models, such as user-centered design, influencing player perception and experience.

Findings

Game characters embody complex value models.

Designers embed tacit, nondiegetic patterns in characters.

Characters can serve as transcendent models for players.

Abstract

Games allow us to construct and explore identities and offer us role models, good and bad. Game characters are a reflection of us -- players and creators alike -- or could be. But do games also encode identities, values, and orientations that transcend diegetic categories and player self-insertion? I explore the notion of game characters as conduits of transcendent models through the case study of Link from the Legend of Zelda series. I propose that designers embed tacit, nondiegetic patterns of praxis and complex value models, such as user-centred design, when crafting the embodiment of characters in gameplay, even unawares.