Thursday, September 06, 2007
Frayed Knights: Talk Ain't Cheap
More on the continuing saga of the indie RPG Frayed Knights - the comedic role-playing game in development here in the dungeons of Rampant Games. "Dungeons" meaning my little basement office.
Conversations
Many early RPGs had you killing every other creature in the game. Most modern ones try to add variety to the game by having you talk to some creatures instead of killing them. Tricksy designers, huh? As it turns out, its usually easier to just kill them.
I, too, have been working on conversations with NPCs (non-player characters). My goal has been to create something that's a little deeper and more interesting than the usual NPC conversations found in other RPGs - where they are little more than quest-and-information dispensers.
I started with the idea of bringing back some old-school Ultima-style (Ultima 7, to be specific) keyword-based conversations, to allow a more organic (if disjointed) flow of conversation. As you talk, keywords become available to trigger dialogs, and disappear once they are "used up." This has an advantage of allowing player-initiated topics of conversation. If the player is on a quest to find the Purple Velvet Jacket, it could be inserted into any conversation menu for any NPC that actually had something to say about the PVJ quest. So the player wouldn't have to go repeat through endless conversation loops and branches just to see if any NPC might mention the PVJ somewhere in their canned dialogs.
I also added a "knowledge / conversation inheritance" system. This way there could be a hierarchy of knowledge in, say, the village. Let's say we have a villager, Ol' Cletus. Now by default, Cletus would already have the conversation options of all villagers. And he's also a member of the Fraternal Order of the Moose. So he inherits all of their common conversation options as well. He's also a regular Bar Patron, and inherits the Bar Patron conversations. So if the Fraternal Order of the Moose is in any way involved with the PVJ quest, Ol' Cletus or any other FOM member may have something to say on the matter.
Then he's got his own, unique conversation options. Because he's Ol' Cletus.
Suddenly Ol' Cletus is a very talkative character. His conversation "tree" is very, very broad. Only a little bit of it is exposed immediately, but through chatting with Ol' Cletus, making him like you or trust you, or satisfying other conditions in the game, new keyword options can be exposed. And old ones disappear as the conversation moves on to new topics, though a skilled conversationalist can bring them back around again. Before Ol' Cletus gets impatient and decides he needs to quit talking and go about his business...
Where It's Going... Or Not...
That stuff is all working. Mostly. But the results were... less than satisfying. Which is my way of saying "it sucks," without damaging my own fragile ego.Now, I'm not done yet with the additional stuff I intend to add to conversations to make them more interesting still... like borrowing some actions from people-sims (like... uh, The Sims) as actions to try and adjust the NPC's mood, patience, respect, trust, or relationship with the PC's.
Which - all combined - would probably makes it a slightly more elaborate cousin to the conversation system in Morrowind. Which I don't actually remember being all that exciting. It makes me wonder if I shouldn't have gone with the plain ol' boring conversation-tree system that everyone else uses.
After all, the game's supposed to be about silliness and comedy, right? Witty banter, sharp repartee, verbal sparring, amusing commentary, goofy misunderstandings, and comical asides. That stuff doesn't just HAPPEN. That has to be tightly scripted to make it work. Why am I shooting myself in the foot like that? While there is a lot of neat stuff to be done in this area, is it the right thing for Frayed Knights?
WWSD?
So I'm left a little in a quandry right now about what to do next. Part of me wants to keep plowing ahead with these really nifty ideas to see how it looks once its all put together. Maybe it'll get better. And another part of me is saying, "That's just putting lipstick on the pig?"
So I think to myself, "WWSD?". "What would Shigeru do?" And then I think, "Well, I don't have his finances, his experience, his talent, or his platform. So I can't do any of that. So what the freak will I do?" And with that, I beat a hasty retreat from the subject altogether, to come back and revisit it later.
Yeah. A bold visionary game designer, that's me.
Actually, I do have some ideas of how to get the best of both worlds. Well, maybe not the best, but hopefully less of the stuff that sucks from both worlds. I'm going to give it a rest for a week or two, while writing up some new "paper prototypes."
What's Next On Deck?
The task I'm really dreading working on (because it's also HARD, like the conversation system) is the trap / lock system. Because after I made that big ol' huge deal about making a rogue-friendly RPG, I need to put my money where my mouth is. Unfortunately, some of the details were a little sketchy on this BEFORE I did away with the skill system. Now they are downright fuzzy.
(Vaguely) Related Frustration
* RPG Conversation Redesign
* Making a Rogue-Friendly RPG
* The Non-Combat RPG: A Fool's Errand?
* Frayed Knights Dev Diary: Orange
* Frayed Knights: Emergency Redesign
Oh, look! A Forum Post Where You Can Mock Me!
Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design, Roleplaying Games
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:00 AM (Permalink)
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The conversation system you're working on sounds like a more advanced version of the system in Shadowrun for the SNES.
One of the things I liked about the system in Shadowrun was that keywords were highlighted in the dialog, which meant you could easily tell if a conversation was "important". In my experience, the highlighted keywords kept me more engaged in the "important" sections of the story.
One of the things I liked about the system in Shadowrun was that keywords were highlighted in the dialog, which meant you could easily tell if a conversation was "important". In my experience, the highlighted keywords kept me more engaged in the "important" sections of the story.
On a side-note, I enjoy reading about the development of the game and the insightful behind-the-scenes process you have gone through as you develop, redevelop, and refine different aspects of the game.
Thank you, Verious. So long as people are interested in reading 'em, I'll keep writing 'em. Missteps and bad decisions combined. Fortunately, you guys have been really good at helping me out and letting me bounce ideas off of you.
You know, I've played Shadowrun for the SNES only briefly. I don't really remember how the dialog was handled in that one - but since I only had the chance to play for just about 10 minutes, that may not be too surprising.
I may have to hunt it down and try it again.
You know, I've played Shadowrun for the SNES only briefly. I don't really remember how the dialog was handled in that one - but since I only had the chance to play for just about 10 minutes, that may not be too surprising.
I may have to hunt it down and try it again.
Are you sure the NPCs should have portraits? If I understand correctly, the elf lady portrait and the character sprite on the screen are the same character. Now there are two faces about the same size but with jarringly different art styles. It works with the PCs, since you never see them in the 3d world, but the NPCs and the first-person view are a problem. Is the elf lady supposed to be a blonde in camo makeup or a dark-haired woman with green clothes? The portrait is obviously temporary, but if you do portraits in the style of the PC portraits, there will be a discrepancy between the cartoony exaggerated portrait and the rigid face on the 3d character.
In a top-down game like Ultima VII or Baldur's Gate, the on-screen sprite doesn't really have a discernible face and acts as a general character icon. The portraits aren't any problem here. But in Neverwinter Nights and Frayed Knights, the sprites are big and detailed enough to have detailed faces of their own, so the portraits done in a clearly different art style are kind of confusing.
In a top-down game like Ultima VII or Baldur's Gate, the on-screen sprite doesn't really have a discernible face and acts as a general character icon. The portraits aren't any problem here. But in Neverwinter Nights and Frayed Knights, the sprites are big and detailed enough to have detailed faces of their own, so the portraits done in a clearly different art style are kind of confusing.
You noticed that too, did you?
This has been an issue I've been struggling with. Another part of the problem is that the cartoon word-bubble interface ends up covering most of the screen between the portraits. So sometimes you can see who you are talking to, sometimes you can't. For a while, I considered just fading out / blacking out the main screen while in conversation.
Do you have any suggestions? I can use 'em.
This has been an issue I've been struggling with. Another part of the problem is that the cartoon word-bubble interface ends up covering most of the screen between the portraits. So sometimes you can see who you are talking to, sometimes you can't. For a while, I considered just fading out / blacking out the main screen while in conversation.
Do you have any suggestions? I can use 'em.
Another part of the problem is that the cartoon word-bubble interface ends up covering most of the screen between the portraits. So sometimes you can see who you are talking to, sometimes you can't
So you can't rely on anything in the center being visible, and having the speech bubbles come out of the NPC sprite on the main view probably wouldn't work? And since the speech bubbles need to come out of a face, you do need some kind of portrait on the side of the screen.
Maybe you could just make the NPC portrait a portrait-sized camera window into the game world, which centers on the head of the NPC sprite. It'd look weird next to the cartoon PC portraits, but it wouldn't be too much work and there wouldn't be ambiguity about just what the face of the NPC looks like.
The way the style difference would sort-of make sense is that the PC portraits are cartoony, because the player is halfway inside the heads of the PCs and the portraits are how the PCs seem themselves. The NPCs are entirely outside the player, so you only get an unexpressive videophone-style view of their faces. (This idea about very different art style in the faces of protagonists and other characters is from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.) The portrait frame might look different for the PCs and NPCs to reflect this. Maybe rounded frames for the PCs and rectangular for the NPCs?
So you can't rely on anything in the center being visible, and having the speech bubbles come out of the NPC sprite on the main view probably wouldn't work? And since the speech bubbles need to come out of a face, you do need some kind of portrait on the side of the screen.
Maybe you could just make the NPC portrait a portrait-sized camera window into the game world, which centers on the head of the NPC sprite. It'd look weird next to the cartoon PC portraits, but it wouldn't be too much work and there wouldn't be ambiguity about just what the face of the NPC looks like.
The way the style difference would sort-of make sense is that the PC portraits are cartoony, because the player is halfway inside the heads of the PCs and the portraits are how the PCs seem themselves. The NPCs are entirely outside the player, so you only get an unexpressive videophone-style view of their faces. (This idea about very different art style in the faces of protagonists and other characters is from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.) The portrait frame might look different for the PCs and NPCs to reflect this. Maybe rounded frames for the PCs and rectangular for the NPCs?
So you can't rely on anything in the center being visible, and having the speech bubbles come out of the NPC sprite on the main view probably wouldn't work? And since the speech bubbles need to come out of a face, you do need some kind of portrait on the side of the screen.
That's pretty much where I'm coming from, yeah.
One option would be just to use a screenshot of the 3D model's face, as you said --- or a camera view. This would be a good thing, because it saves me from additional art content requirements. But It still potentially comes out weird because - at first at least - you are seeing the person you are talking to in two different places.
While I'm sure you can get used to it, you could also get used to someone hitting you in the head every morning with a tomato. Doesn't mean it makes it okay.
There are some other things I can try to get the word balloons coming out of the on-screen character's mouth, maybe. I can try and make the word-balloon positioning more complex, but that hurts the ability to scroll.
Stuff to ponder...
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That's pretty much where I'm coming from, yeah.
One option would be just to use a screenshot of the 3D model's face, as you said --- or a camera view. This would be a good thing, because it saves me from additional art content requirements. But It still potentially comes out weird because - at first at least - you are seeing the person you are talking to in two different places.
While I'm sure you can get used to it, you could also get used to someone hitting you in the head every morning with a tomato. Doesn't mean it makes it okay.
There are some other things I can try to get the word balloons coming out of the on-screen character's mouth, maybe. I can try and make the word-balloon positioning more complex, but that hurts the ability to scroll.
Stuff to ponder...
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