The NPC Romance Project began as class project for a 100-level Communications course at Chatham University, for which the assignment was to “examine in depth an aspect of any medium of your choosing.” My group chose to examine romantic relationships, and as a game designer at Schell Games whose focus is on narrative and content design, I chose to examine romantic relationships in video games. Understanding that much work has already been done about romances which take place virtually between players who meet in real time while playing massively multi-player online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), and having no relevant personal experience of that kind, I decided to examine my own behavior toward romance-able non-player characters (NPCs) in single-player roleplaying games.
- 9 views