Video Game Dialogue: Suggestions and Radical New Ideas

News & General Discussion
1

I’m going to quote the post that spawned this thread:

I have a tendency to make long replies to these after which few respond :stuck_out_tongue: But if you want to discuss the articles and ignore my comments, feel free.

Regarding the first article:

I like the suggestion about building the world before writing. More specifically, the suggestions to build the world map and then create a world history seem valuable. I haven’t really considered how the world map would affect game dialogue. Creating a history is something I’ve thought of before, but haven’t really done.

I feel like the descriptions of the different types of dialogue aren’t necessarily correct and get a bit too far into defining things with lots of overlap, but that’s somewhat subjective and overall they’re good examples of how different types of dialogue can serve different purposes.

The last part is most interesting to me. Cutting the small talk–totally agree. It can be very obstructive to a player. At the same time, however, I think that for non-essential NPC conversations “small talk” or some variant thereof (discussing things not essential to the plot or main characters to the game) can create a richer world. This seems like a real potential strength of RPGs.

Not keeping secrets: can definitely see that one. The examples aren’t particularly great, but they rarely are. More difficult to make this one realistic I feel.

Robotic repetition. Don’t know how to feel about this one. I personally can suspend disbelief a bit for this, but that doesn’t mean others would.

Character quirks: On the surface it seems like a good idea, but it’s easy to go too far with this and have just caricatures.

My opinions here may be influenced by the type of stuff I’m interested in–dialogue-heavy games, typically RPGs. So I’m a bit more forgiving of a final repetitive dialogue “bark” that some might be.

Overall seems like some pretty useful ideas.

Second article:

  1. Symmetric Dialogue: I don’t like this idea at all. It helps a little with situations where the player and the NPC are standing there staring at each other while the player chooses between choices, but I feel it’s just too artificial.

Now, a variant that would be interesting is if it did this visualization, but it was the player’s perception of the character rather than what the character is actually like. So it might be completely wrong.

I imagine this would take an incredible amount of work, however. For it to be meaningful, you need to have some way of quantifying these options, which a player can “think” about an NPC or “assign” to them. This being separate of course from their actual value. You also need to have some kind of mechanic for developing these misguided viewpoints.

  1. Trees within trees. Seems kind of cool, but I see no real value to this compared to a standard dialogue tree.

  2. Magnetic poetry: I can’t see any meaningful consequence of this for a game. The overwhelming majority of permutations would be utterly meaningless and only wasteful to create responses for. There might be one or two which are useful, but at that point (and you get this with the previous point as well) dialogue as communication starts to lose its value. There needs to be a balance between making dialog engaging and making it actually useful for communication–making it so the player learns meaningful information from it, rather than just gets new feedback like a combat system.

  3. Text parsing an imprecise language. I don’t understand this one at all. No idea what this really adds to the experience. I suppose, having not really played text parsing games much, I’m probably not the target for this type of experience.

  4. This is basically the same as an idea that I had a while back. I don’t care for the idea of changing your response based on when you select it, but a timed system seems like a way to truly change the way players interact with a dialogue system, in a way which meaningfully changes how the conversation progresses and makes it more natural (this is only if it’s done correctly).

Anyone have any comments?

4 Likes
2

This is exactly what we did. The lore/history was done before we started. Maps, including political maps, geological maps, bio maps, etc., were all done as well. It really helped when creating terrain and dialogue but also had impact on art as well as certain mechanics.

Of course, I started game dev as a writer so for me, this was very enjoyable. I love World Building. I also had a lot of help too from some talented writers. The one important thing to remember is to be flexible. We have had to make some changes to the lore and the history to make the game play more interesting, add more conflict, and add additional elements to the various cultures in the game.

Great post!

4 Likes
3

I think the first article is a good primer for new dialogue writers as well as a good checklist for experienced writers. Nothing ground-breaking, but handy.

Regarding the second article, I agree with you 100% on #2 - #5. I’ve thought on-and-off about #1 for five years or so, but I’ve only prototyped it in rough form (using the Dialogue System’s tooltip-on-hover extra script) using smiley faces as a stand-in for NPC facial expressions / body language animation. It actually made the process of deciding on a response feel a little more “alive”.

4 Likes
4

I agree. It also is a great list of ideas. The examples are pretty good too. I can see this working great with something like Love/Hate as well.

2 Likes
5

Finally got around to reading the second one and most of those ideas to me just seem to distract from then idea of a living world. If your players are busy picking words that fly by, or magnetic poetry, you run the risk of losing immersion. It becomes a mini-game that might be fun in some simpler games where the entire point of the game is a complex word game, but as dialogue in an RPG it would become tedious for the player…I think. It would for me at least. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
6

I think my main point of contention is the effect it has on the purpose of dialogue.

I played Alpha Protocol a few years ago. I found it pretty enjoyable, and most importantly here the dialogue system was pretty unique. There are a few things, but most importantly for this discussion, frequently the purpose was to manipulate the NPC in the conversation.

I recall one particular mission where there aren’t even any “action” moments. The player merely engages in dialogue to convince an NPC to let the player do something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfDg7rlPEJg

There are many instances of this, in lesser forms, but by and large the player is choosing dialogue options to affect an NPC (it’s even mentioned in the tutorial for the game).

Compare this to something like Mass Effect: the purpose of dialogue is primarily characterization, and persuasion to an extent (the paragon/renegade system). The player largely uses it to define their character.

By showing NPC reactions, the focus moves from player characterization to manipulating NPC emotions. This is not a bad thing necessarily, but I’m not a fan of it being done universally.

Apologies if this is disjointed.

2 Likes
7

That is actually pretty cool! Thanks for the link. :slight_smile:

1 Like
8

The distinction between the purpose of the dialogue in Alpha Protocol versus Mass Effect is very astute. Perhaps then the general purpose of a game’s dialogue can help inform how the dialogue system should work in that game.

3 Likes
9

Another wall of text incoming - I’m sorry!

Indeed. To expound (or pontificate?) on it a bit further, the persuasion aspect of ME also has elements of characterization: the paragon renegade system previously mentioned. Ultimately both paragon and renegade serve an identical purpose in gameplay–to persuade an NPC to give you an extra weapon, or a few extra credits, even perhaps skip a fight. The whole reason there are the two paths, however, is because in choosing a path you’re also characterizing the PC.

I already addressed Alpha Protocol. There’s essentially no characterization - all of your dialogue is quantified not by a personal record or “stat” like paragon/renegade points, but by an external quantifier: an NPC’s perception of you, with a (-10)-(10) point range for your “reputation” with the character. Almost every character (expect, perversely, the one in the video example above, because it’s your only interaction with that person) in the game with 5+ minutes of dialogue with the player has this persuasion system. I want to keep talking but I feel I’m belaboring at this point.

Another interesting and unique example is Deus Ex Human Revolution (and by extension Mankind Divided), where for most of the dialog there’s no quantification system at all, yet at certain points the player becomes engaged in “dialogue battles” with a “boss.” In this case successfully manipulating the NPC is the goal: you’re not picking choices you feel best represent your character (as you might have for the other dialogue), but instead choices that push the NPC more towards the “success state” you’re arguing.

At this point the difference between “persuasion” and “manipulation” seems finer, but in game mechanics for the mentioned games it’s still pretty distinct. Both Alpha Protocol and Deus Ex have situations where you have to figure out what the NPC wants and respond in that way. You pick an option, and the NPC either approves or disapproves, and after a number of these opportunities your “failure” or “success” is shown (not referring to a dialogue box or failure screen–just the result you get during the game shows whether you were successful or not).

Contrast this with ME, where if you can pick a persuasive option–it works. There’s no trying to figure out if what you’re saying fits the person. They are always persuaded (or threatened, for a renegade character), and you move on with the game.

I’ll highlight part of what I just said: “if” you can pick a persuasive option, it works. For a number of these checks the player has to have a certain number of points in that “morality” (paragon or renegade). And you get those points by picking dialogue during the game which aligns with whichever “morality.” So the chance to use the persuasive choice is the result of characterization (the player has to have characterized their character a certain way) and demonstrates it as well (simply by virtue of the two different choices), to a lesser degree.

TLDR: So systems which focus on or highlight NPC response to a player’s dialogue are likely to leave players choosing options for a particular effect on NPCs–for manipulation. Meanwhile, systems which show a stat independent of the NPC, or which don’t show a stat at all (and don’t focus on the choice’s real-time effect on a conversion NPC), are likely to leave players picking choices as they desire, without considering NPC manipulation.

10

I agree. In Mass Effect, it makes sense that persuasion always works, since the point is less to persuade the NPC and more to define your player character as someone persuasive. The game totally shows its hand at the very beginning in this regard by letting the player choose their 3x3 background, which is something I liked even though some people didn’t.

So, given all this, what ideas take dialogue into new areas? Or are we just waiting for machine learning to catch up to the dream of unrestricted free language conversation?

1 Like
11

I’m toying with the idea of a mobile choose-your-own-adventure that runs through Mass Effect-style dialogue (characterization-focused) with the Telltale-style social aspect of seeing how your choices compare to other players. I think those two go together pretty well – social + self-characterization. Good idea? Bad idea?

12

I was just about to start a reply to your previous comment, but I’ll reply here first and say it seems like a good enough idea to me. Though for me a significant part of the reason I play a game or not is the setting, so that may have an effect on the level of interest some have in your game. For instance, I’ve never played a TellTale game (despite playing many adventure games, or dialogue focused games) mainly because the settings for their games don’t interest me.

13

If we’re restricting ourselves to characterization-focused dialogue, I think there are a few things. I think a variant on #5 can have dramatic effects. In a recent thread (https://forum.unity.com/threads/essay-a-future-i-would-want-to-live-in.503486) I made the following post talking about my idea–I’m sure you’ve heard me say it before.

At a later point in that thread I explain that I’m trying to make dialogue a bit more like combat in games (and at a previous point I talk about some differences between the two in games). Combat constantly engages the player with a wide range of choices. Those choices have a semi-unpredictable outcome. The AI acts independently: according to a script, but a sufficiently complex script (depending on the game) such as to make their actions appear dynamic. At any point in time the AI can “force” the player’s hand in some way, requiring them to take action or suffer a failure state (which tends to be death requiring a reload, which is a problem I think, but not the focus of this thread).

Mapping some of these things to dialogue in a game would make it a less passive experience.

Now I’ll point out that some elements of it are not going to cross over well without changing the goal of the dialogue. This is where manipulation might come into play, with elements like the strategic nature of combat (even if it’s a simple game, there’s still an overall strategy) with two agents acting in counter ways probably working better there (on that note–even in games where the player has to manipulate a character over time, like Deus Ex HR, it’s almost completely a passive experience, where the opponent can’t affect the player at all. What if they could, and the player had to manage that?).

Now, the obvious and immediate problem here is that this is going to require a ton of content. In combat you can give the player and the AI 5 or 6 actions and let them mix it up at will, reusing things. This doesn’t work so well in dialog–we tend to enjoy hearing things multiple times less than we enjoy watching things multiple times, so there’s a limitation there that requires more content to overcome.

I’ll reach back a couple paragraphs and say we have to be careful that we’re not directly mapping dialogue to combat. The two are not the same, and shouldn’t be treated as identical. Making a health bar for dialogue changes the purpose (more into something like manipulation). However, taking these strengths of combat in games and applying them to dialogue carefully can hopefully make it a more engaging experience.

14

That would add the kind of dynamism that real life conversations have.

On the other hand, I like to ruminate on responses before choosing one. It’s also nice between high-pressure, reflex-oriented combat to have an untimed section of contemplative gameplay. It feels like story beats, or rising and falling action. Is there be a way to cater to both types of players, or is timed vs. untimed just a fundamental facet of design?

Yeah, I gave a pretty vague description. Assuming a good setting, can dialogue alone really sustain a game? It seems to work fine for Pixelberry (High School Story, Choices), but their games are kind of like soap operas. Dialogue to me feels the most satisfying when it’s like a reward for completing other gameplay challenges such as victory in combat.

15

You make an excellent point. There are times where I feel the same way. When discussing the Genophage with Mordin on his loyalty mission, I wasn’t interested in “playing,” I was more interested in hearing and responding.

Incidentally, how did you feel about the “interrupts” in ME2-3? They incorporated elements of this.

One might be able to work around this a little bit by incorporating very broad time ranges from when the option appears and when it disappears, or having it appear several seconds before it becomes available. Or by including more information (like DA ][ and DA:I’s tone symbols) to allow the player to quickly assess an option. Ultimately however, I feel it’s a pretty fundamental difference in the way the dialogue is designed. Turn combat in games is not designed the same way real-time combat is. “Real time with pause” is a middle ground, but it’s largely real-time with extra options.
I’m reminded of a visual novel/adventure game called 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which in a rerelease had two different modes: “Novel” (NVL) mode and “Adventure” (ADV) mode. NVL mode presented more information, while ADV mode was more “cinematic.”

You could probably design around a more in-depth “real-time” dialogue system, and then later build a simplified “turn-based” dialogue system that skips the more reactive side of things. You could probably play with this a bit, allowing the player to define their character in ways that make the character interrupt where the “real-time” system would have a prompt. This would allow for both designs in a single experience. but off the top of my head, I can’t really think of a way to truly put them together into one system seamlessly.

All of this talk is pushing me towards making a simple prototype just to see the concept in action.

Got a lot to say here.

First, “can dialogue alone really sustain a game” - do you mean dialogue or writing? I’m sure you’re aware that plenty of writing outside of a direct conversation between individuals can be meaningful. So that’s the first point that requires clarification.

Second, “dialogue alone” implies there are no gameplay elements whatsoever. is that what you intend? I only took a look at this Pixelberry’s games, but it looked like the High School game had a gameplay element.

And along with that previous statement, one has to question whether calling it a “game” is the correct term. That is NOT to disparage “non-games,” just a point of clarification. However, to answer the question: yes, I believe so.

I’m sure you know about visual novels (I seem to recall someone making an extension for your Dialogue System designed for visual novels). That’s essentially what you’re describing. A story in written form, where the player can affect the outcome. Simple text adventures fall into the same broad category, but visual novels seem the more popular of the two, with more “game-like” elements (visuals, sound).

Skip this paragraph if you have experience with VNs. Anyway, for better or worse visual novels in their current form originated from Japan, which results in a certain number of common features. They include things like an “anime” art style, very young characters (often in suggestive clothing), and soap opera-esque melodrama like you mentioned for Pixelberry. Even non-Japanese visual novels (most commonly English, or Original English Language Visual Novel) tend to include some these elements.

Now, even if you DID mean dialogue solely, I’d say it’s still possible to write a visual novel in such a way. It would take a bit more aplomb, because while in standard literature a character’s thoughts might be shown, revealing key plot points, you’d have to either bring such things out in dialog (which might become patronizing for a more intelligent reader), or make them impossible to miss in other ways by making them very obvious, too obvious (such as to make it appear patronizing to intelligent readers). However it might still be done.

If you still intended for there to be gameplay (however straightforward)–even better! Would also work well. You could probably elevate the level of your prose in such a case, being able to depend on the gameplay to educate the player.

In fact, incorporating some game elements would make the experience more unique. There’s a visual novel on Steam called Crystalline. I played the demo and got a very RPG vibe–the main character quickly forms a “party” of 5 or so characters, each fitting a different archetype (warrior, mage, rogue, mage-warrior), and then travels across the land, encountering side plots or arcs along the way (and more than once engaging in combat with “bandits”). This is presented in a literary fashion, with no real choice along the way. However, incorporating some of the freedoms of games–not necessarily a full RPG experience, but things like the choice of where to travel–would have made the experience a bit more unique and would empower the player a bit more (perhaps causing them to become more invested in what they’re doing at any point in time).

16

I feel like these QTE-style events spiced things up because they were infrequent. If every response menu had them it would be exhausting. And, like you wrote earlier, their primary purpose was to further define the player’s character.

I haven’t thought through the mobile, dialogue-only game idea very far. It’s just something that idly occurred to me in the context of this thread. In a lot of visual novels, as well as games like Lifeline, most of the action happens around the player as a result of the player’s dialogue choices, not as a result of player gameplay such as pressing jump and fire buttons.

So, in this hypothetical game, an NPC may say, “Mr. President, NORAD reports that the Soviets have launched their ICBMs. Do you authorize an immediate counterstrike?” The player’s action would be to reply yes or no in dialogue (rather than moving an avatar to a big red button and pressing it himself), but there would certainly be in-game events as a result.

I realize there a plenty of games like this already. I was mostly thinking about the design aspects of focusing the dialogue on player characterization.

1 Like
17

Got it. That’s something I was a little unsure on.

I tried to find an old post of mine from years ago (on the Bioware forums actually), but was unable to. Anyway, in it I said something like “The truest RPG that could be made would be a bunch of conversations with other characters, where the main character describes how he would act in a situation.” My reasoning behind this was that it would allow for maximum characterization without the red herring of choice and consequence.

However, in all honesty…I do not think that alone could sustain a game. The reason Mass Effect’s characterization-based dialogue worked so well (and it did indeed work well, despite what all those RPG Codexers said) was because the characterization happened within the “scope” of a larger setting. Not so much talking about the Reaper plot, but the Mass Effect universe. The Genophage. The role of humans in the galaxy. The Quarian/Geth conflict. The existence of these situations provides a context for the PC characterization to have meaning.

So I think the execution of such a design would rely on creating a world the player character interacts with. Your character doesn’t necessarily need to be able to get rid of child labor, but if you perhaps had a walking sim/dialogue game where you happened upon a scene involving child labor, allowing your player and another character to discuss this would be meaningful. That’s a poor example–you’d want something like the things I mentioned for ME, things that appear continually in the series.

In that sense such dialogue may work better for longer games, where it’s easier to put the PC in varied situations they could weigh in on.

However, I think you could do it for a shorter game too, one that placed the player in such situations. Perhaps a modified adventure game. I’m thinking of a detective or investigative game, similar to the Sherlock Holmes games to some extent, which involves the PC and an accompanying NPC having many conversations about their cases which drift into discussions of these weightier topics.

Apologies for extending this with my fantasies, but I can already see a scene where the player and an NPC are investigating a scene at a factory with child workers in the 1800s. The player has an option to bring up the cruelty of such a scene. The NPC in this case would be in defense of the situation, perhaps providing a less modern viewpoint which might help the player understand the mindset behind these historical practices our current society demonizes so readily (something of a problem for current media–all protagonists are typically portrayed as progressive, making these historical situations seem more and more absurd when in reality there were reasons why they happened).

18

Well said. Your mention of detective stories reminded me that Subsurface Circular is in my queue to play. It looks like that game is solely dialogue.

19

I saw that a while back. I found the art and the interface rather confusing, to be honest. In the sense that I wasn’t sure what kind of an experience it was.

Along similar lines, for years whenever I saw the box art for Mirror’s Edge I legitimately thought it was a 3D modelling software.

20

Maybe that’s a good thing – but also an example of the risk of breaking the mould and trying something different.

:smile:

1 Like