This week was all about dialogue. Merrix implemented a dialogue system in our project, and it… is kind of amazing! There are even visual effects to indicate tone or attitude; there’s sass, comebacks, and extra dialogue depending on the player’s actions. All of this gave a sense of life to even just NPCs in a test scene.
This was done in close connection with a system we’re working on for handling quest progress and flags. So, not only can our characters engage in conversation, they can find out where the player is in a quest, and potentially react differently based on that. This can be helpful, since a character who’s not directly involved with a quest might still give you insights or advice.
(Above: an early sketch of a possible layout for a shop/dialogue interface.)
It also heads off some situations that could turn into major plotholes: If a character’s idle chatter references a particular knight in present tense, but the player killed the knight in a previous quest some time ago, it gets confusing. Quest tracking and flag systems help us avoid situations like that.
Merrix and I had both thought these two systems would take forever, but he pulled them together (at least the basics of each) in a single week. We’ll expand both systems later, but for right now, getting them working this well in just a week is pretty amazing!
My week, on the other hand… well. Writing branching quest dialogue is a much different process than what I’ve used to write more traditional narrative things like novels, short stories, and comic scripts. Honestly, the process often feels clunky; not painful, just awkward, like wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. And I’m worried that the actual content is going to come off that way in-game, too.
But that awkwardness and worrying slowed me down this week. In the end, I’d hoped to write at least three quest series, and only managed half of one. But I’ll keep at it. One way or the other, this game WILL get made. Even if the writing sometimes feels like walking with the wrong shoes on.
We’ll check in next week and let you know how it went, so stay tuned for that. Until then, thanks for joining us on this game dev journey!
-Peri