Importance of internal dialogues in CoG games

In my approach in Freak:ANL

I’ve opted to let the player choose personality types and quirks that layer together to form a personality. None of these intrude upon ones actions but rather alter how the scene is colored. From how the MC moves to their reaction both physical and via communication with others. One may be a brat but they can still be optimistic sarcastic or even broody.

The overall affect being each playthrough can feel totally different even if one chooses to go the same route as before.
Guess I’m big on replayability.

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Unless it well crafted I dislike personality tracking as I often may disagree with some choices I face. There are times I may make a consistent choice then something may strick my fancy but I now cannot choose outside of the set path. I plan on leaving choices open in my game.

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Instead of having distinct personalities, you could have varying degrees of each, maybe from a smaller pool of them since in real life, personalities aren’t a strict “have, or do not have”, people show them at different levels.

In the emotion anger, it probably starts with annoyance, then changes into anger, then fury and wrath and the likes.(admittedly, that was not the best example, blame my bad vocab XD) Having subtle but noticeable changes/results/consequences helps.

Also, internal dialogue probably isn’t the best option. Even a grunt or a smile can affect the paragraph/situation greatly.

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I am not as a strong writer as others (or programmer) so with that said here is how I am approaching it in my WiP:

Every choice made is going to have an impact on the story; as such the MC will have a set of personal attributes that will affect the game story as it is told. My attributes are more general and more categories because I’m not as talented as @Snoe and others in my writing ability.

To provide the reader/gamer with enough information to make an educated choice, I use internal dialogue and narration - this is not as elegant or as precise as @Snoe 's work but it will be enough to inform the reader/gamer the perceived consequences of their choices made.

I am currently working on this very thing which is why I am able to delineate the differences between myself and more able writers.

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Personally I think anyone’s best bet is to avoid telling the player how they feel that seems to be the most common off point: when the other starts in one deeper thoughts.

Actions on the other hand should be mostly up for description. Otherwise how does the reader know what they are doing lol

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I have a pretty involved way of doing it in Fallen Hero. I keep tracking choices players make and use them later to track how the text appears in other scenes. In a way I guess I am trying to predict what character people are playing and try to make their reading experience as seamless as possible? But then again, so much of my game is about headgames, and it sometimes involves a lot of writing most people will never see. Still, that is what I find fun about writing a game like this-

Whether it will be successful or not I don’t know. People seem to like it so far, but sometimes I feel a little bad about the amount of work that people might never see. On the other hand, that’s replay value I guess.

Maybe it is because I come from the book/comic writing world, but I like it a lot when games tells me what to feel, as long as they do it consistently well. It is so easy to slip into that ‘wtf?’ territory if you break character. I just have a very hard time getting into the more ‘neutral’ games, they just never capture my interest. I’m here for interactive stories!

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Your writing is very successful; very inspirational. You share the ability with @Snoe to write a lot for multiple replay value scenes.

I do disagree with you telling your audience - as in dictate. Guide your audience and providing a touchstone so they know you and them are on the same page of understanding but as in directing and dictating; that is when the internal dialogue no longer fits this game making but strays into novel or short story telling.

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Thank you, and yeah, you’re right. Maybe that’s what it is when I mean they go into ‘wtf’ territory, when I am yanked out of character. Sometimes talking about how stories are constructed are more difficult than actually constructing them for me, I lack the language for it. Also, I am going to check out @snoe now…

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I don’t like it when games tell me how to feel and that is not how my character feels. Story games with awful MCs are unplayable even if the plot and other characters are great (which is why some otomes are unplayable).

I also don’t like it when the game treats your MC as one dimensional or bases the MC’s entire personality off of one choice. Most people aren’t completely morally black or white; they are shades of grey. One WIP I played based the MC’s personality on a choice made after a plane fell on MC. Why couldn’t MC be upset that a plane fell on them, but normal when a plane is not falling on them?

All general thoughts, feelings, and internal dialogue should be neutral.Choices should be given that allow the MC to express their personality. Guenevere by Jeantown is great at making MCs with distinct and in depth personalities. After many consistent choices, the text can change to reflect the MC’s personality, but major decisions should still have a choice.

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I love this idea. I have an awful lot of stats in my current WiP, and I wasn’t sure quite how to integrate automatic MC reactions into the text. The few times I’ve tried, I had people comment that it was too subtle and their character should be MORE angry-chipper-whichever.

Checking for a highest stat (which I have done, a few times) is bothersome for this game, and often not very meaningful. Checking how far along the MC is on an ‘angry’ stat, though, would work really well! So I think I’ll try integrating MC-tweaks into my writing this way. Thank you for the inspiration!

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Always fall back to the old warhorse “show, don’t tell”.

If you write “You feel scared.” the reader’s response invariably will be “No I don’t.”

If you let the reader open an envelope to find a torn spiral notebook page with the words “you’re next” scrawled in red ink, you don’t have to tell them how to feel. Their own brain processes will interpret the goings-on and organically decide what to feel–or more specifically what the character feels. The more that you can let the reader participate in the situation rather than spoon-feeding them direction, the more involved they will become.

And with CS specifically, you can even use the fake choices to quiz them how they decide to feel and vary the resulting text a bit. That ends up becoming a bit telling since you have to write the range of emotions the reader can choose from, but IMHO that slight artificiality is inherent to CoG style writing and I think most fans expect it. The co-creation of the narrative is part of the magic of interactive fiction.

My 2 cents.

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You know my style. I use both.

I use monologues when I want the players to relate more to the MC or want them to be more immersed with what’s happening in the story. Remember in our story, in the first scene after the MC went to the bathroom? Wherein he/she could choose to turn the lights off?

The MC said that the ceiling is beautiful, with the moon and all the stars glowing soft green? And that he/she feels sleepy.

As the reader, wasn’t it much easier for you to imagine the scene because of the MC’s monologue?

But then it didn’t detract from your choices as a player, right?


There has to be a balance.

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That’s true. There aren’t much monologues, and indeed, I feel like I was more immersed inside the story.

I believe you’d rather small choices matters, than fake choices that would accomplish nothing in the end, am I right on this point?

Thank you to everyone, your answers are of a great help, you all make excellent points :wink:

I don’t really like fake choices. Hahahaha…

Just keep on writing and develop your own style.

Check my emails by the way.

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I did, I will answer to them :wink:

That’s also why I am looking for books, I really want to improve my style. As I stopped writing for a long time, trying to get back to it is a little difficult, as I tend to be distracted by other things. :sweat:

Instead of reading guides, read actual stories.

The more interesting, the more you’ll be motivated, and the more you’ll learn.

Also use real-life experiences when you can. You’ll be able to describe the events much easier.

My background is in novel writing, and with my first game “Attack of the Clockwork Army” I did some novel-y type things very deliberately, eg the MC actually has to have a significant weakness (weak stomach, lack of ability to focus, or xenophobia). Each one CAN be overcome during the story (in different ways), or it can turn a crucial failed test into a death. (It’s really difficult to die in that game, but it can be done.)

I love opposed stats. I do have personality skill tests, eg someone who’s chosen to be honest is more likely to be trusted, or someone who has chosen to be content is more likely to succeed at a boring, repetitive task. Etc.

In both cases, there are bits of text that change depending on what the player has chosen, and there are tests for each stat. The major disadvantage of this is that in many CoG games a well-balanced character is doomed to fail. I try to alleviate that problem by having a full range of options at crucial moments - something for everyone, including the well-balanced character.

I like testing combinations of stats at the end. In “Clockwork Army” that gives players multiple ways to survive (does your skill save you, or your magic, or your best friend?) but in “Scarlet Sails” it results in a high death rate (epic pirate deaths, but still…). That kind of complexity is definitely more novel-like than game-like, which inspires both love and hate.

Fake choices are interesting. They can add a bunch of interesting depth to a character… or get people annoyed that “My choices don’t matter!”

Thank you for making me think about this some more!

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That depends on how you use them. I personally get annoyed when I make a certain choice, and then choose something different in my next playthrough only to find out that choice leads directly to the same text I read the playthrough before that. I don’t mind if the options don’t influence the stats though, as long as it at least leads to some flavored text.

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Interesting that @Cecilia_Rosewood’s take on fake choices is more negative when leading to the same text. I’ll admit I tend towards @Felicity_Banks’s approach - possibly I overuse them for additional character depth without paying the pied piper and leading [quote=“Cecilia_Rosewood, post:27, topic:16916”]
to some flavored text
[/quote]

Sometimes it’s definitely laziness :upside_down: but I also think when you have a longer narrative with some pace, and some of your ‘big decisions’ are disguised as smaller ones, it can give a fun lifelike approach - you don’t know when your butterfly wings will cause {insert horrible natural disaster here]

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Although fake choices can vary the response text, as well as set variables differently, even if the reader doesn’t notice right away.

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