I’ve been thinking it would be useful if choices were somehow coded so the player can tell which choices will do certain things (especially if the text itself makes it unclear or its not meant to be blatant).
I’ve been messing about with a brief test demo of two possible alternatives.
I like the idea and definitely, the second option is the better one.
If you swapped the italic to the information choice, it would be perfect!
For every choice branch, bold feels right to progress to the next choice. Information choices, that expand the story (great for a first playthrough) but don’t affect the game should be in italic. All other choices remain plain text.
Much better For replayability purposes, I would have the italic option as the last choice and the ‘story progression’ option as the first choice. That way, the player on their second/third playthrough can quickly skip by.
I might have to use this for my next game! (Too late for Blackraven now… unless… Could I really go through the code for every choice?)
While this at first just comes across as a cosmetic change, it would be useful for the player. If you imagine the oil rig scene from ZE, at each room you come across the option to progress further would be in bold, the options to explore rooms would be plain, the options to read more of the diary would be italic.
To me, it would make reading the story simpler and this could be included as an *option* at the start of your game. Easy mode, for example.
Made me think of Alpha Protocol, where you’re not given your actual choice to respond, but instead are given three short hand response types.
I personally don’t like the idea of labels (they break immersion for me). I’m not quite sure how I feel about Italicizing and Bolding options though. It seems like that may throw the visual balance of little. Most of us have this idea of the order of empasis: Normal Text > Italicized Text > Bolded Text. I wonder how good colored text looks?
@Reaperoa colored text is better i try to do something similar to mass effect paragon renegade colors. But need js knowledge i havent .Also write code color in each choice sounds awful.
The bold italic no for me in small screens would be awful read choices in italics break inmersion make me look more the bold like correct and the others like fake
I thought about this as in some games I’ve been picking options to find out backstory when suddenly one of them moves on and then I’m thinking if i’d have known I’d have chose that option last.
@Reaperoa
Yeah thats what I was worrying about especially the [labels] system. But I think the bold/italics/normal wouldn’t break immersion.
I’ve checked the demo on my smartphone (Galaxy S4) and I had no trouble reading the italic choice of the bold in the demo. But it wouldn’t be fake and correct choices.
Here is an example (and I’ll use a potential scene from season two of Unnatural)
You crouch over the dead body, Lakota stands nearby studying the bloody smear that trails off into the next room.
*label body_check
*choice
#<i>Talk to Lakota</i>
#<i>Search the victim</i>
#<b>Check another room</b>
Would CoG publish games with choicescript altered for colour choices? it’d be pointless using them if when I wanted to submit my game I’d have to go back and remove them because they aren’t compatible.
I like the normal text, italic and bold options. I’d like for anything spoken to also be included in quotes though. And will it cause issues for those who’re playing with vision problems?
I agree this is a very useful idea particularly the second of the options. You could also do it much like Bioware does in Mass Effect giving Paragon and Renegade options on the wheel.
I thrash out my code on a mac and the colours come out ok on an iPhone so I’m guessing iOS works ok? And if someone had vision problems - would they not appreciate a different colour palette than the usual CS fare? (and if they had the text to speech on then it would matter anyway no?)
For replayability purposes, I would have the italic option as the last choice and the ‘story progression’ option as the first choice. That way, the player on their second/third playthrough can quickly skip by.