Hey everyone. As some of you know, I''m very fond of asking all of you for your opinions on the best way to approach particular design problems I face as a Project Leader. Well, here''s a new one for you, and I''m very curious to know what you all have to say: Dialogue. I have to right it ... I''ve already begun in fact. But I''m not happy with the way I''m organizing it. Like all adventure games, my game is heavy on branching dialogue, and I just can''t find an orderly but flexible way to write it all down. Any suggestions? All ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks! ------------------------------ Changing the future of adventure gaming... Atypical Interactive

I''d say something resembling the programming ''class hierarchy'' diagrams would be your best bet... write the opening dialogue at the top in a box, then draw arrows down from it to other boxes. Label the arrows with the required keyword or whatever it is that triggers a branch in the dialogue. The other boxes contain the resulting reply.

Let''s see if I can ASCII art this...

               +--------------+               | How are you? |               +--------------+                    /    \                   /      \                 bad      good                 /          \                /            \         +-----------+    +----------+         | I''m sorry |    | That is  |         | to hear   |    | good to  |         | that.     |    | hear.    |         +-----------+    +----------+ 

It''s not the most concise format: but it works. You might want to augment the design somewhat, for example, put a star next to words that only appear when a certain in game situation has been achieved, detailing this (or a reference to it) at the bottom of the diagram.

Thanks for the advice! I''ll give it a try!

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Changing the future of adventure gaming...
Atypical Interactive

A word of advice: I QAed a game with TONS of branching dialog that followed the above suggested approach. I think it''s a good idea, but be prepared to tape together LOTS of paper as you follow dialog trees.
Two additional pieces of advice: Come up with a numbering scheme to organize your trees. The scheme should let you know who''s speaking, what the subject is, what point of the game it is, etc. For instance, you might say all guard conversations start with G, all midgame conversations have an M, and all questions start with a Q. So, later on, when you run across GMQ544 you''ll know it''s a midgame guard question.
Secondly, I recommend including control values in your chart. This will help with testing later on. Say GMQ544 has a control value of Player Intelligence 15. You include that on your chart, and when you test, you''ll be able to easily see if the guard is asking the right questions.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Ok there used to be some programs that imitated chat. They weren''t very good but that was 10 years ago. Looking for something that can be tied to a knowledge base to have quasi "discussions" about various subjects and then lead into scripted lessons in educational games.

knightmystery@hotmail.com