DIALOGUE CHOICE CYCLING OPINIONS

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When you're playing a game that gives you options for responses during events, the way they go about it is some blend of tradition and what's needed for the game. I don't have a firm grasp on whether some things exist because they always have, or whether they exist because they work and keep working.

That said, we've been juggling ideas for a response selection system for this new project. We're not trying to innovate, but some of the traditional options don't work for everything.

Things we had to consider are:

-Controls do not use mouse
-Controls function like a normal RM game (Direction, Confirm, Cancel, etc.)
-Event scenes tend to zoom closer for a more cinematic view
-Not every option instance has the same number of options (can be from 2-5 so far)

This is one of the ideas we have going, and I'd like to know some more opinions on it. (Excuse the poor framerate of the recording.)




I've heard that cycling through options breaks the pace of a scene because you can't see all of your options side-by-side, but the cost benefit would be less screen clutter, and the scene itself feels less broken in a way because there isn't a big, game-y dialogue wheel or something (like Bioware might use).

Thoughts on this, or examples of other things I can research to better fit this experience?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
This seems very well executed to me, and the scrolling through of options fits in nicely. My big worry when playing (or making) a game with a lot of choices is that the player will be pressing enter or spacebar to move the dialog and accidentally choose whatever the first choice is. I can't completely tell from just the video, but as long as the player knows a choice is coming then I think it's all good ^_^
In your example, the only issue I'd have is that NEXT might seem like you're queuing the player to press the continue button instead of choosing a choice? Perhaps just having the arrows would be a better design choice in that regard.

I do like that you colour the boxes a bit (I hope you make it apparent to the player that different colours might mean different things and what they are?) so that the player can easily tell whether it's a positive/negative answer.

I also like that you can see all of the text choice. One of the issues that people had with Fallout 4 was that you'd only see a small part of your answer so you'd expect one thing and get another. Being clear what the full answer is (so that you know whether you're going to be funny or sassy or whatever in reply) is very useful for someone who is RPing a particular character.
I like the thought bubble thing. I'd leave away the "NEXT".

Also I'm not sure if it's possible in RM but how about having to keep pressing the button for 2-3 seconds to select the choice. Like when you keep pressing it, a colour fills around the thought bubble and once it completely surrounds it the choice is taken. If you let go, the colour disappears again and you can select another choice.

Also as someone who made games with lots of choices - be aware that different paths increase the effort needed to write the dialogues exponentially. So plan these games small (unless the choices are just flavour and the result is always the same like in most JRPGs, then it doesn't matter).
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
One issue I immediately see here is an issue that anyone who's ever played Suikoden 1 & 2 is familiar with. The normal dialogue is written out excrutiatingly slowly, letter by letter. Then, unless I'm just being misled by the laggy video, the game apparently offers the ability to press enter to speed through it faster - which means that 99% of players will be pressing enter twice in a row for every dialogue box, to skip the slow text crawl. They don't wait until it starts typing, they just press enter twice as fast as possible every time. But then when the choice window appears, the text is written instantly. This causes the player to inadvertantly choose the first option because they're expecting the enter key to simply show the dialogue faster.

This can be solved by removing the particularly awful "press enter to skip the slow text crawl" feature, which IS something that just keeps getting used because it's always been used, and not because it works and keeps working. Replace it with a menu option to turn off the slow text crawl, or just get rid of the slow text crawl to begin with. (Unrelatedly, if you do keep the text crawl, double the speed of it. It's too slow.)

Other than that it seems fine.
I like "crawling" text more than "bam!" text, but it needs to fit exactly to my reading speed or else it is very irritating.

I like how Shining Force solved it. Just pressing the button wouldn't speed up the text, only keeping it pressed did and it was only higher speed and not "bam! full message is there". So I could manually adjust the letter speed to my reading speed like that.

You still should make sure that when a choice comes and the button is keeping pressed, it is not confirmed immediately.
Wow, thanks, guys! All of this input is good. I didn't expect so many quick and insightful opinions. Just woke up and BAM!


author=Liberty
In your example, the only issue I'd have is that NEXT might seem like you're queuing the player to press the continue button instead of choosing a choice? Perhaps just having the arrows would be a better design choice in that regard.


author=RyaReisender
I like the thought bubble thing. I'd leave away the "NEXT".


It's gone!


author=LockeZ
This causes the player to inadvertantly choose the first option because they're expecting the enter key to simply show the dialogue faster.


author=unity
My big worry when playing... is that the player will be pressing enter or spacebar to move the dialog and accidentally choose whatever the first choice is.


author=RyaReisender
Also I'm not sure if it's possible in RM but how about having to keep pressing the button for 2-3 seconds to select the choice. Like when you keep pressing it, a colour fills around the thought bubble and once it completely surrounds it the choice is taken. If you let go, the colour disappears again and you can select another choice.


This is really good advice, and should be fairly simple to implement.


author=LockeZ
This can be solved by removing the particularly awful "press enter to skip the slow text crawl" feature, which IS something that just keeps getting used because it's always been used, and not because it works and keeps working. Replace it with a menu option to turn off the slow text crawl, or just get rid of the slow text crawl to begin with. (Unrelatedly, if you do keep the text crawl, double the speed of it. It's too slow.)


Great, I have the infrastructure for that menu option already set, just haven't thrown it all together yet. But good advice. Where were you when I was making Last Word? XD I added the text-skip much later after a lot of complaints.

Thanks!
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