Chapter 3. A Matter of Character

A video game wouldn't be much fun without characters, and this chapter is all about bringing your game characters to life. Games typically have two kinds of characters. First, there is the character or characters that you are playing as. These are called the player characters. The characters that are controlled by the computer are called the non-player characters or NPCs.

This chapter will explain how to create characters for your game. Along the way we will cover:

• Sprites: Sprites are any textures that the player interacts with in the game. This includes the player characters, NPCs, and other objects in the game.
• Animation: The art of making an image appear to move is called animation. You will learn how to use multiple images to make your textures move on the screen.
• Atlases: Images can be stored one at a time, or they can be combined into single composite texture known as a sprite sheet or an atlas.