tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post8700317112461353150..comments2023-10-07T04:42:45.232-04:00Comments on New York Gamedev: Game talkWadjet Eyehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06999082508434214753noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-44138964695288957372010-07-30T08:57:29.486-04:002010-07-30T08:57:29.486-04:00It annoys me when you have to "wait" for...It annoys me when you have to "wait" for dialog or click through it chunk by chunk. Your 17 line version was fine and I could read it quickly. But when it appears a few words at a time above a little cartoon character it gets annoying. It's doubly irritating when you miss a detail and have to provoke the whole conversation again.<br /><br />There must be a better way to present dialogs in adventure games than that. Showing the full script on screen, like you have in your post, would enable readers to get through the dialog much faster.David Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10437350044177392499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-5493392096287021942010-06-30T15:05:52.339-04:002010-06-30T15:05:52.339-04:00Hi,
I have no problems with long dialogs but it d...Hi,<br /><br />I have no problems with long dialogs but it depends on how they are done. For example the voice cast of the blackwell series are good so I like to listen to dialogs there. There was only one thing I did not like too well: Repeating the same dialog over and over again as it appeared in Convergence (Actor, "I´d now you would come...", Artist).Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07906421154886508646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-70060779731670774602010-06-18T18:35:56.968-04:002010-06-18T18:35:56.968-04:00@Dave I'd never guess Convergence had less lin...@Dave I'd never guess Convergence had less lines than Legacy, especially as the game seems to be longer in general. I can only guess why it felt to me like it did. It could be just as well an impression from the number of different characters and conversation topics. Or maybe for some reason I did repeat same conversations a lot in search for clues.Igor Hardyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05299134805341162209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-63833088571641092572010-06-16T18:26:11.551-04:002010-06-16T18:26:11.551-04:00I think there are more than one issue that you are...I think there are more than one issue that you are trying to touch on at the same time, Dave, and I'm wondering if it might perhaps be better to separate them.<br /><br />First of all, you really cannot forget the time factor involved. Certainly time has passed since the original example was written, and your skills would have been subsequently shaped over time.<br /><br />Secondly, is the factor of editing. Certainly you must do mostly self-editing, but editing is a skill that is often just as important as the writing. (I wonder if it may be an under-represented skill in game development.) Perhaps a good external editor would have helped you cut the original script down, paring things closer to the new version.<br /><br />As for "long sequences of dialog" with little interactivity, I think that the simple answer is usually "more interactivity". That said, I'm not adverse to strong "monologues" (in the lengthy bursts of exposition or emotion from a character) if done well (and fitting with the story and pacing). That said, there is one revelation that I had...<br /><br />I was working towards the speed run achievement for Secret of Monkey Island (Special Edition), and it became clear that the dialog with The Voodoo Lady was entirely optional in SMI. That conversations seems so important to establishing the "feel" of the game, that I remember playing the game just to replay that dialog. Yet, there isn't a puzzle-solving reason to ever talk to The Voodoo Lady (and I bet there are even players that might never have bumped into her in SMI).<br /><br />I think one of the (great) challenges of interactive writing is not giving up those long dialogs that you sometimes love to write, but definitely giving up the assumption that all of your players will see it. More importantly, don't feel that you have to gate all of your players through all of your content, particularly when the only excuse is that you like that content and want to make sure players see it.<br /><br />I think its actually something of an ancient tenet of adventure game design that wasn't so much lost as just never written down in neon letters and emblazoned onto people's retinas. In so many cases the long dialogs are just the sort of reward the people that find them are looking for. (You can even make players literally beg for it, if you wish. Such is the power of interactivity.)<br /><br />(Also, just a small nit, but it seems more typical to compare the length of dialog/text using word counts rather than line counts (because a line length is rarely standard). Do you have any word count comparisons?)WorldMakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14660526008419248096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-41202152531850623842010-06-16T12:26:21.989-04:002010-06-16T12:26:21.989-04:00@igor
It's interesting that you say Convergenc...@igor<br />It's interesting that you say Convergence felt more talky, since the overall line count in Convergence was much less than Legacy (around 4000 for Legacy versus around 2750 for Convergence). I'll have to look into that. Any more thoughts on the matter, though?<br /><br />@Jess<br />Hah! I wonder if Twitter is a contributing factor in the lack of patience for long dialogs. Even film and television is significantly quicker and snapper than it used to be. Heck, look at Doctor Who. As for Gabriel Knight, oh yes those games can really pour on the dialog. But the characters are so cool and the story is so interesting you don't care. Who wouldn't want to listen to Michael Dorn for a few hours? It's been years since I've played them. I wonder if I'd still have the patience.Wadjet Eyehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06999082508434214753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-40731750984562883722010-06-16T11:15:35.640-04:002010-06-16T11:15:35.640-04:00I never skip anything in a game, particularly dial...I never skip anything in a game, particularly dialog. I read (or listen to) every word. I love them. I'm all about text-heavy adventures, like The Longest Journey. Right now I'm playing Gabriel Knight and bathing in a sea of dialog.<br /><br />As I study more and grow as a designer, though, I've been learning the same lesson you're learning -- nobody wants to read your words. One of the major, and most difficult, things I have to learn is how to keep it under my hat and cut myself off. Twittering has actually been a wonderful exercise for me, teaching economy. You have to say more with less.Jess Haskinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02894334216456014297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-42420305665283984362010-06-16T09:42:14.398-04:002010-06-16T09:42:14.398-04:00I would describe myself as someone who doesn't...I would describe myself as someone who doesn't have too much patience for long dialogs and lots of extraneous information thrown at him. Nevertheless, when I think it really through, it's not as simple as that.<br /><br />I don't remember having any problems with the length of dialogs in Blackwell Legacy, in fact for some reason it's my favorite game in the series and I was really interested in hearing Rosa's reactions to all sorts events and things around her. I found the whole lead-in to Rosa discovering Joey particularly great and involving.<br /><br />The only Blackwell that seemed a bit talky to me was Convergence. It probably has something to do with the fact that in Legacy and Unbound the player is able to manually create new (and vital) conversation topics, which makes him feel much more in control during the dialogs. Also, the player listens to some of the dialogs with the immediate satisfaction of cracking a puzzle and moving further in Rosa's investigations - in Convergence the conversations are mostly hunts for clues that you use outside them later.Igor Hardyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05299134805341162209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-46959406760675005032010-06-16T03:54:37.241-04:002010-06-16T03:54:37.241-04:00Great insight into how to structure dialogue for a...Great insight into how to structure dialogue for an adventure game - It's so true about Bioware games... I spent most of "Mass Effect" listening and watching the dialogue, absorbing the "experience."<br /><br />I spent most of "Runaway" and other recent adventures clicking past the dialogue to get to the next puzzle.eriqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17511055068990141768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-84398254638998085722010-06-16T01:57:20.389-04:002010-06-16T01:57:20.389-04:00MI2-style character gestures mitigate this somewha...MI2-style character gestures mitigate this somewhat. And optional "Tell me about yourself ..." dialogue choices are fine, making further exposition a matter of player preference.Clarvalonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08868169810712321832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-51628824577956320442010-06-15T22:33:03.834-04:002010-06-15T22:33:03.834-04:00The second version of the phone exchange felt a li...The second version of the phone exchange felt a little rushed, but that may be only because I had just red the first version. I will say it set off a red flag for me at the end, because I heard once from someone reviewing webcomics that "I hate you" was a bad punch line, which I guess I must have internalized. I think things really are lost in abridgment, long dialogues are certainly something to be conscious of.<br /><br />Hmm.<br /><br />Trying this on. I think long, involved dialogues in games are really like your more wordy, involved novels. It isn't that they are bad, per se, and they DO add depth. But just like you would sometimes rather read some lightweight sci fi than try to force your way through Moby Dick, sometimes you just don't want to play a game with a lot of dialogue, no matter how much it adds to the story and world, when you could be playing something engaging and fast paced. And just like some people are never going to sit through Moby Dick, some people are never going to sit through Dreamfall (which has NOTHING on Moby Dick--I mean, God damn), and if your artistic vision demands that your playerbase have both free time AND attention spans, then you had better be prepared for a smaller audience, but if you need a broad audience to stay afloat, financially, then you had better be prepared to write the sort of bite-sized dialogues that won't turn people away.<br /><br />I guess I think we limit ourselves when we frame game design choices in terms of right and wrong, even when certain features are widely despised for perfectly understandable reasons. Because what really matters when you set out on a game (or any other artistic endeavor) isn't how many people like it, or how much money it makes, or whether it has good artistic or literary or technical qualities. It isn't even how fun it is. It is whether you accomplished what you wanted to accomplish, and if not, whether you accomplished something else that you or anyone else finds worthwhile.Charlie Moorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03540422681166174127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-29656793172388584992010-06-15T22:32:39.546-04:002010-06-15T22:32:39.546-04:00Half my favorite games are among the biggest offen...Half my favorite games are among the biggest offenders of this excessive dialogue problem (Xenogears, Longest Journey games), so I have to say on the whole, I don't usually mind. In fact, I would take great pleasure in being responsible for my own unrepentantly plot-heavy read-o-thons, and if they turned away some potential audience members, so be it.<br /><br />But then there are those times when the scene in question just isn't worth the forty five minutes it takes to sit through it, or maybe you'd like to head out and you just need to save your game without skipping something, but no, some chump villain isn't finished with his autobiography, yet, and would you please just bear with him another second or 5000 more. (Adventure games are especially bad here, because most of them have automatically progressing text and no pause button.)<br /><br />After taking part in the above mentioned AGS thread, it occurred to me that optional dialogue is actually worse than the mandetory stuff. Story specific dialogue is usually relevant, at least, but optional dialogues force the player to wade through a bunch of trivia, just to make sure they aren't missing any important hints or insights. But whether you are exhausting the dialogue tree of a new NPC in an Adventure Game, or reading the one to four lines of every random townsperson in the new location you just came to in a JRPG, what you are really doing is a chore. You are accumulating information, a fraction of which will be genuinely useful, informative, or entertaining, and the rest of which will be pointless world trivia and rewording of things you already knew.<br /><br />I think the real point is to take optional dialogue into account when you are considering the pacing of your story, and not treat it like it is that special place to dump all the information you didn't want to bog down the plot with.<br /><br />On Blackwell: On reading both scenes, the first one does feel a little drawn out, but I didn't notice in the game itself when I played. I actually thought that exchange worked pretty well. There were a couple points where I thought dialogue dragged on a little, though. I can't remember which, though. In general I was fine with the dialogue.Charlie Moorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03540422681166174127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-14010597334235258542010-06-15T21:42:05.057-04:002010-06-15T21:42:05.057-04:00I like it, even love it. But you have to do it ri...I like it, even love it. But you have to do it right. ALWAYS make it skippable, ALWAYS have subtitles for those who'd rather read (much more quick) than listen, and NEVER (the written part anyway) have it advance on its own, unless its also pausable.<br /><br />If something comes up and I have to leave the game, I don't want to miss anything. I also don't want to miss anything because it auto-advances right after I clicked the button for it to advance, and miss a whole line of dialogue. Or have it advance <br /><br />Making the dialogue replayable could help, so I can <br /><br />But I want to be able to not have to wait through it again if I've already listened to / read it. Skippability.<br /><br />The great dialogues are one of the things I like most about your games, David.Aaron Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11894862387785151433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-83619692404624824652010-06-15T20:23:04.989-04:002010-06-15T20:23:04.989-04:00What part of "adventure" or "game&q...What part of "adventure" or "game" implies lengthy noninteractive dialogue? I'd definitely lean towards less, in this day and age.<br /><br />Two things to note:<br /><br />1) Dialogue doesn't have to be non-interactive. Can you not have branching dialogue, where the player selects one of several options and the NPC responds, possibly changing the game state in the process? I don't know about AGS specifically, but I've seen this in other adventure games, and certainly if you're using your own engine this is not very difficult on a technical level.<br /><br />2) Dialogue is not the only way to tell a story. The environment can tell a graphical story (even a low-res one) without any text at all. A red blotch on the wall of a murder scene doesn't really need a character saying "wow, look at all the blood on the walls" -- the player can see it for themselves. Show, don't tell, right?Ian Schreiberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03146360375570794401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-74497365351000662682010-06-15T19:04:02.947-04:002010-06-15T19:04:02.947-04:00Nice article, Dave. I liked that thing about Biowa...Nice article, Dave. I liked that thing about Bioware and pan, zoom, moving and emotions. If lengthy conversations in adventure games were like that, I wouldn't mind them, I'd just relax and enjoy the show, but when all you got is 2 static sprites, with no portrait, no animation and no emotion shown, you better make it quick or snappy or funny, otherwise I'll get bored.<br /><br />>>> The best solution to keep the player interested is putting images on the screen, in my opinion.<br /><br />Images or cutscenes, or animating your characters, or having them visually show their emotions instead of using text/speech for that and further increasing your line count.<br /><br />Pushing even further, you could use playable flashback for important backstory exposition. If they're talking about murder, why have them narrate the whole thing? Why not give the player the control of the victim and have him play the scene?blueskirthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15313012301046978524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-50385464585958246132010-06-15T18:28:25.356-04:002010-06-15T18:28:25.356-04:00I would say I'm against it. I would be tempte...I would say I'm against it. I would be tempted to say that if there's that much backstory/information then to make it optional, but then I'm reminded of all the games that provide extra backstory that I don't read because I just want to get to the gameplay. I'd prefer finding out information through a character's actions or through details in the game environment.The Noir Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083554242251593591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-37376835007623504372010-06-15T18:15:52.514-04:002010-06-15T18:15:52.514-04:00Depends if the dialog is interesting or if I like ...Depends if the dialog is interesting or if I like the character. I'd listen with my full attention if the conversation was interesting or revealed something important to the game but if it was nothing important then I'd skim through it or would be like 'ugh! when is it gonna end.<br />I find the way characters talk reveals alot about them, so alot of dialog is not so bad to me, as long as there's also equivalent stuff for the player to do to balance the long dialogs ^^Serkunethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00559410321823313238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-90714884942459956932010-06-15T17:57:07.807-04:002010-06-15T17:57:07.807-04:00As a gamer, I don't like long dialogs and page...As a gamer, I don't like long dialogs and pages of topics in adventure games. I feel myself obligated to read all the possible dialogs (and especially what we can choose to say), long dialogs can become a torment especially if English is your foreign language. Sometimes less is more.<br /><br />The best solution to keep the player interested is putting images on the screen, in my opinion. Are they talking about a murder now? Why don't we see an artwork that describes the incident?<br /><br />~Gord10Ahmet Kamil Keleşhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11410360164980713289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1951592145893047590.post-34861502296951759232010-06-15T17:54:02.083-04:002010-06-15T17:54:02.083-04:00Hate it. Hate it. Oh my... hate. Every time the ga...Hate it. Hate it. Oh my... hate. Every time the game takes control from me and makes me read or listen to pages and pages of dialog... that's not why I play games. I play games to PLAY games. Let me get to finding random stuff and rubbing them together.3dpprofessorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09302309534971264219noreply@blogger.com