Hi, a small question here. In my game the dialog is quite straightforward, what appears on the choice is exactly what the player character will speak. So as to make the player make sure what he wanted to say is what he said, and that he doesn’t forget what option he choose, I started a practice of repeating the text in the beginning of the next page.
However, some may find that annoying and/or distracting; not sure if this is common or not in CS games.
An example
First what the player is going to say is displayed in the choice.
Then that is repeated in the start of the next page, so that the player knows exactly that is what he said, and that if he reads from the top again for whatever reason, he will remember what he picked.
I like it personally. Lots of times when I’m playing, I have to put my phone aside, then remember where I was when I can get back to playing again. This helps.
It’s totally fine, Wayhaven Chronicles does exactly the same thing and I like the format there. If you wanted to compromise of course you could do it more like a Telltale game, in the sense that you get the gist of your characters response in the options and then you get a more full response in the next section.
While I personally don’t mind it, I can understand why some people would be bothered by having the same statement in two places. If it is something that worries you, you could always try making adjustments to the phrasing. Using the above example, the answer that you select could be ‘Ask about the plane crash’ and the actual text could be “Could you tell me more about that plane crash you were in?” Same answer, but in a different style so it’s a bit less repetitive.
This bugs me sometimes. I think I remember in the Mass Effect games, you’ll get a vague option and when it’s expanded it would on occasion be expanded into something completely different than you imagined.
A made up and exaggerated example would be:
it doesn’t matter (me thinking “it’s OK, not your fault etc”)
Expanding into:
It doesn’t matter, we wouldn’t have won it anyway.
I prefer it personally. I don’t always play games straight through, so a reminder or reiteration of whatever choice I may have made several hours ago is helpful. I did get called out for doing exactly this on my wip, so I’ve been trying to rephrase/expand upon the choice just made rather than restating it, but both styles have their merits.
I like the way Wayhaven handles it; the choice will just have quote of what the MC says, and then the next page will work the quote into a full sentence with more description. For example (from TWC demo):
Choice:
“Depends on how gruesome the murder is.”
“Depends on how gruesome the murder is,” I reply, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets.
I know it is a bit late, but this is exactly what I want to do, just wanted to ask if there was a code to command the game to display the text of the choice on the next page or do I have to re-type the text of the choice every time?
