Using the hero journey in games

And if you make a mistake, you can start over. So, go play a video game. Spend a couple hours remembering. Blow away some monsters and save the world. Maybe it was a spiritual metaphor when I felt like hero last night. Your browser does not support HTML5 audio. Large toggle button. Previous track button Next track button. Small toggle button. I was playing video games. Social In-security. Are You in a Toxic Friendship? Eight Hobbies to Pick Up in Every Life Is a Story. How to Find Rest in Restless Times.

She may have misgivings about this compulsion, and this is where a mentor may come to encourage and guide her. Example: Katniss Everdeen is a devoted sister, daughter, and friend.

The Hunger Games, wherein only one winner survives, loom, and she fears she or one of her friends will be chosen. Katniss and her family attend, and she breathlessly wills Effie not to draw her name. She gets her wish, but to her horror, her little sister Primrose is chosen. Peacekeepers shove Prim toward the stage before Katniss volunteers to take her place.

They are soon whisked away for training and then the competition. The hero crosses the threshold back into her ordinary world, which looks different now. She brings with her the rewards and uses them for good. Example: Unexpectedly, Katniss and Peeta are told there can be two victors instead of one.

They emerge not only as victors, but also as celebrities. They have changed in unimaginable ways. Before your hero is transported to another world, we want to see her in her ordinary world—who is she when no one is watching?

What drives her? This sets the stage for the rest of your story , so show her human side. Make her real and knowable. Once you give your readers a reason to care, give them more to keep them turning the pages.

Her father is dead, her mother depressed, and Katniss will do anything to provide for her family and protect her little sister.

Katniss breaks the 1-tribute-winner rule by threatening to perform a double suicide with the other tribute from District 12, Peeta Mellark. They then return home, victors of the games. There is a reality and deeper meaning in the story. In the Hunger Games, Panem is a metaphorical world for Collins to communicate the inequality of modern social classes. In the book, there is no mention of money.

There is however, mention of rich, poor, and hunger. The importance of food in the book is colossal. As soon as Katniss and Peeta get on the train, there are pages of food descriptions. The reaping system sums up to: If you want to live, you have to die.

We know the food each district or family has represents their wealth, the Capitol not even being a part of the Districts or the games being the wealthiest. These beats are familiar, and audiences have grown to expect them. This is our picture of the regular world, before anything comes along to muck it up. We get a shot of the characters, the setting, what the characters want and need, and maybe a little bit of what tensions and challenges exist in this world.

Our hero is called to action. Maybe someone shows up at their door and asks them to go on an adventure, or they run into the love of their life—whatever it is, this is the part of the story where the character is asked to leave their state of normalcy and embark on an adventure.

Doing this means that the character must be thrust into the action against their will. The hero has either gone off on an adventure or has been thrust into one—now, they get some sort of guide to take them through this new world.

Think Gandalf or Hagrid. This is the point of no return! This is the start of the second act, or the initiation. Your character is making friends, enemies, facing trials, and adapting to the new world on their quest to achieve their goal. This is the hero doing what they set out to do, or the climax of the piece.

Everything in the novel culminates here, and everything afterward is resolution. This is the end of act two, and from here, we transition into act three.