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

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.