Revealing the villain help T^T

[Victor Hate]

The hardest part of my game has not been making it


its been how I can reveal who the villain is!


This where am stuck!


I want to drop hints on who he is in back flashes but without giving it away totally.


The only issue is...how to do this.


I have done a few things such as back flashes of him before he was evil getting a puppy that will grow up to be the villains side kick.


It will also show that he has the same fear of fire as he did before he was evil.


I guess what I am saying is any help on this would be pretty hot...because my brain is burned out.


Not that am lazy I just been working with so many characters that with this guy I need some fresh brains on this XD

 

[Ghost of Christmas Kloe]

Um... What about they pop out from behind a corner and go "Mwhahahahahaha!"?


Evil purple mist and then they pop out from behind a corner and go "Mwhahahahahaha!"?


An explosion and then they pop out from behind a corner and go "Mwhahahahahaha!"?


They just say, "What if I was the villain?" and kill everyone?

 

[Dark_Metamorphosis]

I would say hiding the identity for a villain can be quite hard, but for me the easiest way to disguise it is to add the villain element on someone else completely. Make the player think that a completely different person is the villain with his actions, attributes etc and then hit them in the face with the truth at the turning point. 


This specific way of doing it is often illustrated in thrillers or in movies of a murder investigation or similar. The movie focus on different people and let the audiance think that he, or she is the killer in various ways but still put very subtle hints that the audiance will not really focus on when it comes to the actual killer.


It can be a hard process to excecute, but keeping the focus off the main villain and reveal as little as you can in his flashbacks of his past or actions to prevent the hints, and add too much to the conlcusion that he is the villain in the play, is what I would try to do.


If the villain is already established, you could add an outer source of why he changed or why he became the villain of the game (This is how I do it in my game, the villain is already established but what the player doesnt know is that an outer source is actually the villain but just portraying himself as the person in question). 


You could also make it interesting by hiding the villains motives for as long as possible, or have a specific set of motives that will be portrayed during the whole journey but that is only a fragment and linked to the villains real motives. Something I'm doing with my own game too.


But I would say that you are on the right way, just hide that character who recieves the puppey and dont portray him to the audiance as someone that could be linked to the real villain, but still add small portions of information that will makes sense when its actually revealed.


I think it depends a bit on how you are portrating your villain from the get-go and how much information that the player will get during the game. I have several characters in my game with hidden motives, and hidden characterstics that will be revealed at certain points of the game.

 

[Valryia]

Another option: Let not the villain reveal himself, but let the party / other NPC reveal the villain.

 

[Victor Hate]

@Dark_Metamorphosis the idea behind the backflash is that during the time they happen its 100 years before the story line of the game.


So the player is like thinking they are seeing the past life of a hero he looked up too only for it to be revealed later that same hero has now become the same villain he has to stop from turning his world to darkness.

 

[Valryia]

@Victor Hate If your villain is a tin tyrant, then the classic villain reveal is a helmet removal, preferably at the climax of the story.

 

[Victor Hate]

@Valryia he wears a mask to hide his scarred face.


My idea was to have the mask break at one point to show half of his face to reveal he is human. The whole time it assumed he is a monster or demon of some kind because he is able to control a object that is source of his dark magic.

 

[Valryia]

@Victor Hate Oh, and completly different from the reveal, consider letting the villain redeem himself by letting him fight with the party vs. the true enemy. Players love getting an cool villain in their party.

 

[Azurecyan]

Perhaps the evil villain joins the protagonists at one point like Valryia says, but maybe with a different mask or a different guise(maybe with no mask if the scar is not severe). Eventually he could drop something or give small hints as to who he is and then leaves the party or at some point reveal to them when timing is right.

 

[Valryia]

And of course the classic transformation into another person being, if teh game world allows that. Or possesion, because why not?!

 

[LightningLord2]

My favourite way to reveal villains is when there's a big, obvious villain threat, but the actual villain turns out to be someone inconspicious. Especially so if the villain openly kills the fraud. My main example here is the RPG Maker 95 game Heroine Iysayana:

Spoiler

A vampire named Shadmyr is the main villain for the first part. After some events in the second, he gets the Holy Light Armor, which supposedly makes its wearer invincible. It turns out (if you piece it together, it's rather obvious, given that it's just randomly found in a cave) this whole thing is completely fabricated. Instead, his servant Paulinus set the whole thing up to get to kill him in front of the public with the Sword of Naajit (a fire sword with actual powers) so he is revered as a hero, letting him complete some world domination scheme undisturbed as it would discredit your efforts to reveal his plans (you were immobilized by Paulinus every time he showed up so far).