Abstract
The research here described represents the small starting point of a bigger research project which objective is to develop a
Virtual Learning Environment based on the popular Massively Multiplayer Online Games for Brazilian students. Following
the player’s flow in the gameplay, the first step to be considered is the avatar creation and customization. The objective of
this paper is to settle the initial parameters for the character’s creation system based on the cultural aspects of Brazilian
people. Using an exploratory and comparative methods, this work has analyzed three different online games in order to
determine which avatar’s characteristics should be customizable. Seven distinct Brazilian ethnic groups were found formed
by five other groups, including international immigrants, like Japanese. Based on these groups and the games analyzed, the
next steps for this work and a new research were established as results. From now on, the character’s archetypes should be
developed to set up the customizable body parts. Additionally some complex problems were found to be answered in future
researches, as the player’s class assignment in an educational game. It was considered important to assign some technical
directions in this early stage of development, such as the Game Engine selection and software parameters that are not directly
related to the culture, but to economic and social aspects of the target audience. Three Game Engine with free version
available were analyzed and the results has pointed to Unity, for its low cost and flexibility and multi-platform as well. The
Web Browser game deployment capability really suits the requirements of this project.
