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Alright, pretend your game is like a short story...you know, a "breif work of fiction where usually the main character faces a conflict that is worked out in the plot of the story." In order to make those characters as real as possible, you could rip off of Shakespear like Disney has done for nearly its entire career, or you could read this. Either way, it takes thought from YOU, the viewer/reader/whatever. So if you feel you don't want to spend any amount of time on characters and just use cliche's, it'll save you around the two minutes it takes you to read this.

Anywho, you should know that a character is ALWAYS two of the below:
-Round--fully developed, several personality traits OR
-Flat--steryotyped, one dimensional, few traits AND
-Static--does not change OR
-Dynamic--changes as a result of the story's events

Round and dynamic people are good for everyday heroes, because they're most like us. Flat and static characters are good for villains, because a flat and static character is supposed to represent something, in this case evil. For a less evil example, in Lord of the Flies, there is a character named Crooks and he's alone and dreary all day. He is a symbol of sadness and lonely. Another thing, if you want to tell people what your character's like, don't just tell them unless you're Doctor Seuss. SHOW them what your character is through his/her/its actions, thoughts, feelings, words, appearance, etc. As an example for a Christ-like figure, make his/her/its initials JC, as some books do.

Other than just characters, let's work on mister and misses pro and ant agonist.
--Protagonist--the main character of the story who usually changes (and death is NOT a change, though he/she/it can die if you'd like). He/she/it is also the most important character who drives the story along. My example here is Pirates of the Carribean. Who would you say is the protagonist there; Jack Sparrow or Will Turner? Guess what, the real protagonist is Jack Sparrow. Sure, Will's a nice guy, but if he never existed, things would go along just as smoothe. Another thing that brings up is that your protagonist doesn't have to be the good guy. He/she/it could be like Jack, not good or bad, just there. Or he/she/it could be like you know who in that one epic poem where there's a war between Heaven and the other place.
--Antagonist--major character who opposes the protagonist who mostly doesn't change. As you all know, this could be a person, the protagonist himself, nature, society, technology, yada yada yada. Though, a central conflict with the character versus him/her/itself could be very interresting, it is not one I suggest to be the main plot train.

Ah yes, we need to talk about point of view, because that's what really gives you a sense on how the characters are most likely to be portrayed.
--1st person--one, "unreliable" narrator who you have access to all his thoughts and sights (that he tells you, of course).
--2nd person (it actually DOES exist!)--the "you" narrator. Mainly used for horror and stuff. "You get up out of bed and feel the cold air blowing in from the opened window. You see the blood on the windowpane and scream" (yes, I know, macabre is not my forte)
--3rd person limited--like first person, except the character's views aren't reflected. It's like you can hear this person's thoughts and can follow him wherever he goes, but he never actually has to tell anything.
--3rd person dramatic--like a camera, you just sit and watch everything that goes on. No thoughts are read to you, only what you see you know.
--3rd person omnicient--mister know-it-all, who can do whatever he wants to get the info he needs.

I guess that's about it for character development, so here's my other out-of-place advice:
1.Don't get those stupid screenshot things unless you're using it for something other that posting a screenshot on this website. If you own a PC, there's a button called "Print Scr / Sys Rq". If you press that button, it'll take a picture of your entire screen as it is and put it on the clipboard. From there, you're free to put it on paint or whatever.
2.If you are as bad as me when it comes to making jokes, don't try to. Eventually, whenever you're not trying to be funny, you will be.

Good tut.

It was a well-laid out tutorial which explained your points clearly, but it didn't tell me much I didn't already know (except the extra 3rd persons) and was way too short for something like character design. If I were to make a tutorial just on character design, I'd have to make it in installments, each being about two or three pages long.

However, this could be very handy as more of a quick-reference guide when stuck. Maybe it's because of the tutorial's title. It's a bit misleading.

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I agree with kid. There's nothing here you don't learn in English class.