Nice interactive way to tell your audience about your scope! I'm afraid you'll drown in hundreds of branching textboxes and you'll need a big notebook to keep everything in check. Anyway it's pretty simple, just fill out your stickman's mood meter? I sure hope there will be other ways to achieve a 'win' condition, otherwise you'll just praise every NPC to their heart's content. Also it's a long dialog tree already, other NPC interractions should be a little more rigid imho.
>you'll need a big notebook to keep everything in check
I predicted this, so internally the dialogue branches (or the beginnings of branches) are grouped not only by categories, but also in internal groups. For example - the "Goal" category had 3 groups - "Ask about the goal", "Goal achieved - negative" and "Goal achieved - positive". Those groups can be plain ("always enabled"), or be removed from the dialogue options via some condition check (like the goal dialogue options were). I think this will at the very least help with managing the scope of the dialogue contents.
>just fill out your stickman's mood meter
Yup, either way (negative or positive) is fine.
>I sure hope there will be other ways to achieve a 'win' condition
Not in this demo since I didn't have other gameplay mechanics (map traversal, etc) ready for the demo. If I manage to implement everything that I want, including the story planned - praising every NPC will not get you a happy ending.
>Also it's a long dialog tree already, other NPC interractions should be a little more rigid imho.
Yeah. This is a tech demo for the dialogue mechanics, so I went wild with it. I plan to have proper dialogue trees for quest objectives, every other interaction should not be this long.
>before realizing that you had to be kind to see the goal lol
Nope, you could be mean and still reach it, the requirements for both positive and negative are the same. But it seems that I've screwed up the balancing and put too many positive affinity changes. Sorry about that.
I'm not sure about the sim-ese language. I might lean more towards a Golden Sun esque dialogue sound when the text scrolls.
lmao ok I just got a very satisfied "sneed" and now I'm warming up to it. But people not in the joke might be confused.
Poor grammar: "So whats your game is about?" better as: "So what's your game about?"
>java
I think experienced dialogue should be removed after I go through it. I got to the congratulations screen by just spamming a talk prompt that seemed to move the bar further into the red.
Curious where you go from here! The basics seem nice but I think for it to be worthwhile there needs to be more. The 'I like you' / 'I hate you' binary setup feels too simple. There should be more ways to measure how an NPC feels in a conversation. This makes me think about the Oblivion talking minigame. I'm not saying that's the end all be all of amazing video game conversation, but it was unique. I also couldn't tell how much the dialogue options branched based on how the NPC felt, I think that will be crucial to have the necessary depth.
Yup, it's supposed to be exactly that, since I'm trying to remake a 20 year old rpg sims game. Though VA is still not set in stone, I'm just trying stuff out to see what works and what doesn't.
>Poor grammar: "So whats your game is about?" better as: "So what's your game about?"
That's really odd. It's "What's" in the game resources, but for some reason the apostrophe is not being rendered. May be an issue with the font lacking a glyph for an apostrophe, I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the report!
>I think experienced dialogue should be removed after I go through it. I got to the congratulations screen by just spamming a talk prompt that seemed to move the bar further into the red.
This seems to be a common complaint. While the "farming" is kinda intentional this demo - I'll definitely have to look into removing/altering it for future versions.
>The 'I like you' / 'I hate you' binary setup feels too simple
There are 5 stages actually, "neutral", "positive", "friend/lover", "enemy", "nemesis". The "Do you like/hate me" question is more of a "condition check" dialogue option. The main gauge for affinity is the bar and little face icon between the character screen part and the player options screen part. But I get what you're saying. While I don't think I will alter the dialogue screen - I think you're right about it being too binary. I'll think about something to let the player know his relationship with a certain character and add a bit more "flair" to it.
Yeah, I gotta say, having to be nice to make it to the victory screen gave me some mental issues. Not that I wanted to pick the evil dialogue options, either. Just the nice ones were too overly nice for me. Very joke/art game like this. Anw fortunately I could win by just listening to some jokes.
I think the concept is very nice. (When I had never played a VN, I thought VNs worked like this.) Looking forward to content proper!
Thanks for playing the game! It's not required to be nice - you can be mean and still complete the game. The idea is "be rude or be nice - just stay consistent".
I think you wanted "neutral" responses? Yeah, there wasn't as many of them as the other ones. I'll think about that for the next demo.
Well, it’s a joke game content-wise so most dialogue options are over-the-top. That’s fine. Just personally am too shy to choose such dialogue options, even if just in a game. At least when the other side is a model of the game’s dev and I’m streaming.
Great start, very cozy and relaxing. I made it to the end. Loved the sound track, voices, and character reactions. Looking forward to seeing what's next!
It's just missing QOL stuff like being able to skip typing (i.e. pressing Z while text is typing out will immediately make all text typed out). EDIT: Took a peek at the options right after, and apparently that's something that needs to be specifically turned on. Why? It's a staple in most games so it should be on by default imo.
If the point of the game is to make the character happy to progress, and it's possible to farm happiness from repeating choices, I feel that most players will eventually just end up spamming the same choices because they know what works. There's no real incentive to explore other options if you risk losing progress, save for some flavour text.
Anyways that's all I can really say for now. Looking forward to how this game turns out, keep it up!
Thanks for playing the demo! Yeah, I'll set it to "on" by default, it seems to be a common complaint. As for the affinity system - you can reach the end by pissing the character off enough times. Basically you can go both positive and negative. The idea is "Be nice or be rude - doesn't matter, but be consistent". There are some dialogue branches when the character hints at the fact that it's not required to make him happy to progress. Anyway - thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
It’s hard to explain. I kept catching glimpses of potential as I played your demo. It feels like the
dialogue system is hiding its power level. It feels like there’s a lot of cool stuff going on behind the scenes.
Yeah, that's the one. For some reason I thought adding "dis" to "morale" is a thing. ESL, plz understand. I'm glad you've completed it! Which route did you take?
No problem! I was just wondering which route is more reachable. Tried balancing them to be roughly equal in time if you're consistent with your choices, but during my playtesting positive route seemed faster.
Works good, UI is intuitive and doesn't get in the way. Enabling auto skip on default is worth considering. Also, you might want to consider system preventing me from farming love with one line, other than that great demo.
You're right about autoskip, will probably do something like "Skip all/Skip read" VN style with "Skip read" on by default.
Farming love/hate is intentional since I wasn't sure if players will be able to consistently reach the requirements for the end screen. Some dialogue branches are pretty lackluster in terms of affinity changes. But I'll keep this idea in mind for when the game has more content.
Anyway, good tech demo. Nice voice acting and a good dialog system. But you could have done this way faster in an engine, and that will be true for any other features you want to add.
Minor thing, scrolling on the dialog of the character doesn't work, even dragging the scrollbar doesn't work.
Thanks for playing the demo! I know, that's why I put that dialogue option there :)
As for scrolling - mouse scroll (or any function, actually) is not supposed to work in dialogue UI. Character message box supports scrolling with arrow keys, just like the player options choice.
Comments
Nice interactive way to tell your audience about your scope! I'm afraid you'll drown in hundreds of branching textboxes and you'll need a big notebook to keep everything in check. Anyway it's pretty simple, just fill out your stickman's mood meter? I sure hope there will be other ways to achieve a 'win' condition, otherwise you'll just praise every NPC to their heart's content. Also it's a long dialog tree already, other NPC interractions should be a little more rigid imho.
Looking forward to the next update!
Thanks for playing the demo!
>you'll need a big notebook to keep everything in check
I predicted this, so internally the dialogue branches (or the beginnings of branches) are grouped not only by categories, but also in internal groups. For example - the "Goal" category had 3 groups - "Ask about the goal", "Goal achieved - negative" and "Goal achieved - positive". Those groups can be plain ("always enabled"), or be removed from the dialogue options via some condition check (like the goal dialogue options were). I think this will at the very least help with managing the scope of the dialogue contents.
>just fill out your stickman's mood meter
Yup, either way (negative or positive) is fine.
>I sure hope there will be other ways to achieve a 'win' condition
Not in this demo since I didn't have other gameplay mechanics (map traversal, etc) ready for the demo. If I manage to implement everything that I want, including the story planned - praising every NPC will not get you a happy ending.
>Also it's a long dialog tree already, other NPC interractions should be a little more rigid imho.
Yeah. This is a tech demo for the dialogue mechanics, so I went wild with it. I plan to have proper dialogue trees for quest objectives, every other interaction should not be this long.
OMEDETOU!
yeah i also was mean to the little guy before realizing that you had to be kind to see the goal lol
could make for an interesting concept, and i liked the simlish spoken
Thanks for playing the demo!
>before realizing that you had to be kind to see the goal lol
Nope, you could be mean and still reach it, the requirements for both positive and negative are the same. But it seems that I've screwed up the balancing and put too many positive affinity changes. Sorry about that.
How am I supposed to play this? Where's the guns, blood, killing of demons, the pilfering of treasure? 0/10
Seems to work well enough, keep on making it so it's more fun.
Yeah, this is a tech demo for one part of the game. Can't promise killing demons and treasure, but guns and blood *may* appear further down the line.
Thanks for playing the demo, I appreciate it!
I'm not sure about the sim-ese language. I might lean more towards a Golden Sun esque dialogue sound when the text scrolls.
lmao ok I just got a very satisfied "sneed" and now I'm warming up to it. But people not in the joke might be confused.
Poor grammar: "So whats your game is about?" better as: "So what's your game about?"
>java
I think experienced dialogue should be removed after I go through it. I got to the congratulations screen by just spamming a talk prompt that seemed to move the bar further into the red.
Curious where you go from here! The basics seem nice but I think for it to be worthwhile there needs to be more. The 'I like you' / 'I hate you' binary setup feels too simple. There should be more ways to measure how an NPC feels in a conversation. This makes me think about the Oblivion talking minigame. I'm not saying that's the end all be all of amazing video game conversation, but it was unique. I also couldn't tell how much the dialogue options branched based on how the NPC felt, I think that will be crucial to have the necessary depth.
Thank's a lot for playing the demo!
>I'm not sure about the sim-ese language
Yup, it's supposed to be exactly that, since I'm trying to remake a 20 year old rpg sims game. Though VA is still not set in stone, I'm just trying stuff out to see what works and what doesn't.
>Poor grammar: "So whats your game is about?" better as: "So what's your game about?"
That's really odd. It's "What's" in the game resources, but for some reason the apostrophe is not being rendered. May be an issue with the font lacking a glyph for an apostrophe, I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the report!
>I think experienced dialogue should be removed after I go through it. I got to the congratulations screen by just spamming a talk prompt that seemed to move the bar further into the red.
This seems to be a common complaint. While the "farming" is kinda intentional this demo - I'll definitely have to look into removing/altering it for future versions.
>The 'I like you' / 'I hate you' binary setup feels too simple
There are 5 stages actually, "neutral", "positive", "friend/lover", "enemy", "nemesis". The "Do you like/hate me" question is more of a "condition check" dialogue option. The main gauge for affinity is the bar and little face icon between the character screen part and the player options screen part. But I get what you're saying. While I don't think I will alter the dialogue screen - I think you're right about it being too binary. I'll think about something to let the player know his relationship with a certain character and add a bit more "flair" to it.
WAGMI
Absolutely!
Thanks for playing my demo!
Yeah, I gotta say, having to be nice to make it to the victory screen gave me some mental issues. Not that I wanted to pick the evil dialogue options, either. Just the nice ones were too overly nice for me. Very joke/art game like this. Anw fortunately I could win by just listening to some jokes.
I think the concept is very nice. (When I had never played a VN, I thought VNs worked like this.) Looking forward to content proper!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2079129703
Thanks for playing the game!
It's not required to be nice - you can be mean and still complete the game. The idea is "be rude or be nice - just stay consistent".
I think you wanted "neutral" responses? Yeah, there wasn't as many of them as the other ones. I'll think about that for the next demo.
Thanks for your feedback!
Well, it’s a joke game content-wise so most dialogue options are over-the-top. That’s fine. Just personally am too shy to choose such dialogue options, even if just in a game. At least when the other side is a model of the game’s dev and I’m streaming.
My hope for next demo day is non-joke content!
No problem, I got you. Next one will be a bit more gameplay heavy (at least that's the plan)
Great start, very cozy and relaxing. I made it to the end. Loved the sound track, voices, and character reactions. Looking forward to seeing what's next!
Thanks for playing the game, I appreciate it!
Does its job well enough.
It's just missing QOL stuff like being able toskip typing(i.e. pressing Z while text is typing out will immediately make all text typed out).EDIT: Took a peek at the options right after, and apparently that's something that needs to be specifically turned on. Why? It's a staple in most games so it should be on by default imo.If the point of the game is to make the character happy to progress, and it's possible to farm happiness from repeating choices, I feel that most players will eventually just end up spamming the same choices because they know what works. There's no real incentive to explore other options if you risk losing progress, save for some flavour text.
Anyways that's all I can really say for now. Looking forward to how this game turns out, keep it up!
Thanks for playing the demo!
Yeah, I'll set it to "on" by default, it seems to be a common complaint.
As for the affinity system - you can reach the end by pissing the character off enough times. Basically you can go both positive and negative. The idea is "Be nice or be rude - doesn't matter, but be consistent".
There are some dialogue branches when the character hints at the fact that it's not required to make him happy to progress.
Anyway - thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it!
It’s hard to explain. I kept catching glimpses of potential as I played your demo. It feels like the dialogue system is hiding its power level. It feels like there’s a lot of cool stuff going on behind the scenes.
Lookin’ good!
Thank you for playing the demo, and thank you for your kind words!
Everything seems to work correctly. Dismorale isn't a word, I guess you mean demoralization? I have defeated the dialogue:
Thanks for playing the demo!
Yeah, that's the one. For some reason I thought adding "dis" to "morale" is a thing. ESL, plz understand.
I'm glad you've completed it! Which route did you take?
I'll be honest I started going through all the options rapidly until I got out. I only noticed that he got angry, whoops..
No problem! I was just wondering which route is more reachable. Tried balancing them to be roughly equal in time if you're consistent with your choices, but during my playtesting positive route seemed faster.
Works good, UI is intuitive and doesn't get in the way. Enabling auto skip on default is worth considering. Also, you might want to consider system preventing me from farming love with one line, other than that great demo.
Thanks for playing the demo!
You're right about autoskip, will probably do something like "Skip all/Skip read" VN style with "Skip read" on by default.
Farming love/hate is intentional since I wasn't sure if players will be able to consistently reach the requirements for the end screen. Some dialogue branches are pretty lackluster in terms of affinity changes. But I'll keep this idea in mind for when the game has more content.
Anyway, good tech demo. Nice voice acting and a good dialog system. But you could have done this way faster in an engine, and that will be true for any other features you want to add.
Minor thing, scrolling on the dialog of the character doesn't work, even dragging the scrollbar doesn't work.
Thanks for playing the demo!
I know, that's why I put that dialogue option there :)
As for scrolling - mouse scroll (or any function, actually) is not supposed to work in dialogue UI. Character message box supports scrolling with arrow keys, just like the player options choice.
Pretty decent tech demo. Can definitely see the potential of a decent game once more content is added.
Thanks for playing my demo, and I appreciate your feedback!
I mean, it's fine. It's a dialogue system that can be used for a game. It needs a good hook, though (e.g., Needy Streamer Overload).
Thanks for playing the demo!
You're correct, it's more or less a tech demo of a dialogue system.
I tried to make at least a bit entertaining though to showcase its capabilities.