I created Tina Keane as a sample player character for a third-person POV action-adventure RPG. Set in present-day northern England, the game takes a slice of life and throws in a heavy dose of stealth gameplay and character-driven narrative. I always wanted to design a gameplay experience that has roots in the real world, and Tina’s a clever but struggling working-class northern woman, the likes of whom you don’t often see in games. That’s interesting to me, and something I wanted to experiment with in this character design exercise.
I also kept ‘northern’ quite vague, although I’d be happier to get into the specifics because there are huge differences in the UK’s northern regions! For this exercise though, I’ve been pretty broad about it, which leaves room for adaptations.
Side note: although I hadn’t actually played the Yakuza games when I designed Tina, my concept for this narrative is somewhat like a Yakuza: Leeds edition, except with a greater focus on stealth rather than out-and-out action.