NPCs don’t derive their credibility by simulating new life they are a product of existing ones. My farm needs tending, my lord needs saving, my species is once again imperiled, and I know whom to call. My NPCs are sleeper cells in the box below my TV, ready to activate a friendship on my command. In many cases you can shoot one at point-blank range with ammunition meant for supermutants and only elicit a meek, “Hey, watch it!” They tend to repeat themselves under persistent questioning. NPCs, on the other hand, linger - sometimes embarrassingly, standing motionless while you read a menu or go for a pee. Roger Sterling fills a glass, lights a smoke, drops a quip and ends the scene. Their peculiar charm defies the conventions of good fiction, where side characters are supposed to dip in and out of the narrative stream with grace and economy. Is it weird to harbor fond memories of a pile of code? I’ve encountered thousands of NPCs in my digital travels, and it’s not a stretch to say that I have deeper feelings for some of them than for ex-lovers or certain cousins. But I only had eyes for Karen, whose begrudging affection and insistence on a life beyond Flowerbud Village flipped a switch deep within my sixth-grade psyche. Role-playing titles routinely offer up NPCs as romantic interests: “Harvest Moon 64” featured four additional bachelorettes, each a key to new quests and subplots. They minister to a player’s every need, dispensing information, laying down cover fire, guiding us to self-discovery through our bouts of amnesia (a common affliction in games). NPCs work as scripted bumpers, providing order to the virtual worlds that player-protagonists pinball around. She is a nonplayer character, or NPC - a member of gaming’s subordinate caste. Karen exists inside a late-90s video game called “Harvest Moon 64,” which I was obsessed with in middle school.
She was mostly brusque, often drunk and registered annoyance at my every approach. Karen worked as a waitress at the local inn and spent her leisure time plotting an escape to some unspecified big city.
ICARE STERLING HOW TO
I didn’t know anyone there, or how to farm.
ICARE STERLING PATCH
My grandfather had died and left me his farm, a dirt patch outside a tiny village. I met Karen years ago under trying circumstances. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
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