Backpack Battles is a lovely game where six women have grand adventures and fight in thrilling tournaments, while the player's job is to help them pack. Based on their portraits, the sounds they make on winning or losing a duel, and the stuff they can find in shops, I've written all six of them a deep, nuanced, dare I say human personality.

Backpack Battles Characters React To...

...Watching a Scary Film

Berserker: Likes an exciting horror film, with monsters and fighting and hopefully some women in combat boots, but serious psychological horror will keep her awake at night. She is more than happy to be clung to by a terrified viewing partner.

Pyromancer: Reacts loudly when scary things happen, which helps her deal with the fear. Sometimes she'll keep a running commentary: "Kya baat hai, did you see what that four-headed skeleton did to him?! And those bits falling down his jumper! It's the little touches, you know? Pure cinema." Alternatively, when especially frightened, she has been known to burst out laughing.

Reaper: For appearances' sake, she watches plenty of horror films. For her sanity's sake, most of them are Scooby Doo films. The poor thing watched The Shining once, and spent a whole day shivering in bed, wishing Alucard was with her.

Ranger: Doesn't generally watch horror films, or indeed any films, preferring the great outdoors. One the rare occasion that she does watch one, she gets very emotionally invested, cheering on the main characters or crying when things go badly. Scaring her, however, is not easy, and may require a Pyromancer jumping out from behind the sofa.

Adventurer: Has a shelf full of videos in her shed, but the scary ones are exclusively for lending to her friends. If she did end up watching a horror film, the poor Adventurer would spend the whole time shivering behind a cushion, while the Ranger consoles her and pats her knee, and the Mage describes every four-headed skeleton attack in exquisite detail.

Mage: Is enjoying herself a bit too much. She makes jokes and tries to work out who's going to die next, with such a not-terrified smile you'd assume she was watching the opera. However, the Mage is also a big Scooby Doo fan, which is how she met the Reaper.

...Getting Stuck in the Mud

Pyromancer: Promptly loses her temper and starts setting the mud on fire. Unfortunately, this ends up baking the mud solid, leaving her even more stuck. She blows up the mud and staggers out of the smouldering crater left behind, wishing she'd stayed on the path.

Necromancer: Pours water on the mud to try and loosen it. If that doesn't work, she just stands there until someone comes by to help her.

Berserker: Struggles valiantly to break free; a few seconds of shouting, swearing and determined pulling usually does the trick. If it doesn't, she tries to dig her feet out of the mud with a spade, frying pan, wooden sword, or suitably firm banana.

Ranger: Never gets stuck. Somehow, she just trots over the boggiest-looking fields and fieldiest-looking bogs without any trouble.
If she DID get stuck, though, she would calmly slide her feet out of her boots and stand on something solid, from where she'd use a thorn whip to rescue the boots.

Adventurer: Pulls ineffectually on her bogged-down feet, getting more and more upset until she bursts into tears. Eventually, she pulls herself together and tries to improvise an escape. Using her belt as a rope, digging away the mud with a banana, levering her feet out with a crowbar, hiring a Goobert to eat the mud, or using a magic scroll to make her boots non-stick; at least she'll have a fun story when she stumbles into the tavern, muddy from head to toe.

Mage: Uses a spell to give herself some waders and rubber gloves. Sadly, despite being a bit more waterproof, she's still stuck. Next, she uses a spell to turn the mud into a massive blueberry cheesecake. Sadly, she's still stuck, with her feet embedded in thick cream cheese. So the Mage uses another spell to give herself the appetite of a hundred lions, takes her lucky spoon from her top pocket, and boy does she tuck in.

Reaper: Wonders why she just got called a "necromancer" even though she's officially a Reaper. Wonders why it's so muddy even though Backpack Battles contains no mud or mud-related game mechanics. Tries screaming for help a few times.

Pyromancer: Comes charging along with a flame in each hand, determined to rescue her friend. The terrified Reaper starts protesting that she's fine, thank you very much, and would prefer to stand in this lovely, refreshing, safe and unexploded mud for a few more hours.

Berserker: Bursts out laughing when she sees the Reaper's predicament, but offers to dig her out. Her offer will be met with varying levels of enthusiasm whether she's equipped with a shovel, wooden sword, frying pan or banana. That being said, she will probably let Ms Reaper eat the banana to get her strength back.

Ranger: Is sheepishly crossing out "Necromancer" in her address book and replacing it with "REAPER", in capital letters, underlined twice.

...Too Much Mud Around the Village and they're Getting Quite Fed Up

Berserker: Is the first one out there with a shovel (or frying pan) and a sack of gravel, filling in patches of mud or digging them off the road. Her wolf pups come out to help, but for the most part, they end up digging holes and rolling around in the mud. Berserker spends a few hours hard at work, getting mucky and sweaty and red in the face, but she's still laughing and smiling when she stumbles home in a pile of dogs.

Ranger: Plants some wildflowers and hardy, fast-growing shrubs around the village, hoping they'll drink some of the excess water and hold the soil together. She also spends a while checking on her friends and giving snacks to all the people cleaning up.

Pyromancer: Tries to find a glamorous, cool, and preferably way of helping, because dirt doesn't go with her Pyromancer uniform. She settles for leaving warning signs where people have got into difficulties in the mud, and running a hot bubble bath for the Berserker.

Reaper: Spends a happy morning up on her balcony, watching people slip or getting stuck in the mud through a fancy pair of opera glasses. Then a certain Pyromancer chucks a traffic cone at her. Chastened, Ms Reaper comes downstairs and starts scattering black rose petals on the road. "I'm helping," she thinks to herself.

Mage: Arms herself with scrolls of Fortify Terrain, Mud to Stone, Mud to Chocolate, Mud to Typewriters, Drain Viscosity, Afflatus Swamplace and so on. After borrowing a bunch of blueberries to keep herself in mana, she flies into action and de-muds half the village. Sadly, one of her scrolls turned out to be Fortify Viscosity, and the other half of the village will never be seen again.

Adventurer: Starts plopping down bricks for people to use as stepping stones. Then she runs out of bricks, so she starts digging up mud to make mud bricks. Eventually, she digs up every spare piece of mud in the (surviving half of the) village, leaving her with 12,517 mud bricks and nowhere to put them.

...Having a Bath

Berserker: Gets covered in soap and bubbles, scrubs herself down thoroughly with a loofah, and takes a few minutes to relax. She likes combining different bath bombs and seeing what colour they turn the water, although her active lifestyle means it usually ends up rather dingy.

Pyromancer: Prefers a hot bath, and by "hot" I mean practically boiling. Somehow, the scalding water doesn't faze her, and she can lie there peacefully for hours. Once she's got comfy, it takes a momumental act of willpower for her to get out of the bath.

Ranger: Loves baths, but her scatterbrained nature and jam-packed schedule mean she has about one bath a month. She likes splashing around and making a mountain of bubbles, usually at the cost of flooding her kitchen. (It's a medieval fantasy game, so her wooden bath lives in the kitchen, near the kettle and the fire.)

Reaper: Normally, she scoffs at self-care and hygiene, preferring to look pallid and unhealthy. Baths are the exception. She loves having elegant, gothic baths, lounging in red, black or purple water scattered with nightshade petals, in a full face of make-up. Tragically, the water always goes cold before her portrait is finished.

Goobert: Needs their baths to be just right; otherwise, they risk absorbing too much water, leeching out valuable minerals, or even dissolving. They need a teaspoon of vinegar for every bucket of water, or two teaspoons if it's hard water, and the bath has to be exactly forty-six degrees Celsius. No lye soap, definitely no lye soap. A Courage Puppy to snuggle up with afterwards wouldn't hurt.

Adventurer: Likes long, relaxing baths, but her wooden tub is much too small, so she has to curl up a bit. She can usually be found under an eclectic mix of bath toys, scrubbing herself down with a broken washing-up brush and a sea sponge which is getting rather flat. She uses a different bar of soap every time, taken from her dusty crate of three hundred soaps, which gives her a slightly different smell every week.

Mage: Could clean herself easily with magic, but where's the fun in that? Instead, she makes the water dance and bubble and sparkle, shining in all the colours of the rainbow while it sprays her squeaky clean... and most of the bathroom soaking wet. Sometimes she uses the Adventurer as a guinea pig for bathing spells.