Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(1 edit) (+2)(-1)

This is honestly a really shit take.  By your standards, the MC also shouldn't have any dialogue, because it isn't what you would have said.  It's clear you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how writing a character works, so in the hopes of helping you understand, YOU are not the MC.  The MC is a character the author has created, and the internal dialogue exists to help you understand and immerse yourself in the character, not transform the character into you. 

Let me give you a very basic example of why it's important.  Let's say there's a situation where the MC and a female character are on the verge of engaging in some sort of sexual activity.  Maybe you as the reader would just rip off her clothes and go to town.  However, the author chose to have the MC play hard to get and tease the female character a bit to push her into taking the lead but doesn't want her to know.  So the author has the MC say "It's getting really late.  I should probably head home."  So you're sitting there like "what the fuck? Is he an idiot? She obviously wants it."  Without an internal dialogue of the MC thinking about teasing her, you would have no idea why the MC said he was going to leave.

That being said, I do understand where you're coming from.  You want to imagine the MC is you, but that just doesn't really work in VNs.  My suggestion is wait a few more years, and through the use of AI it's likely that authors will be able to write the basic outline of a story and allow you to choose exactly what you would say or do while the AI generates responses that fall in line with the story outline the author gave it.

(+1)(-1)

I think you misunderstood the intent of my comment, so I'll try to help you out.

The concept of making your MC relatable to your audience is a fundamental and basic principle of storytelling. Depending on the genre and style of your game or story the techniques that you use to accomplish this may vary. 

You mentioned that by my standards the MC shouldn't have any dialogue at all. This made me chuckle because that wasn't really what I was saying, however, that very concept is actually a thing. It's called 'The Silent Protagonist'. Here's a portion of a Wikipedia page that explains the concept. 

"In video games, a silent protagonist is a player character who lacks any dialogue for the entire duration of a game, with the possible exception of occasional interjections or short phrases. In some games, especially visual novels, this may extend to protagonists who have dialogue, but no voice acting like all other non-player characters. A silent protagonist may be employed to lend a sense of mystery or uncertainty of identity to the gameplay, or to help the player identify better with them."

You may take note of the last sentence in the paragraph which explains this as a technique of making the MC more relatable to the player. Off of the top of my head, Link, from the Legend of Zelda series is one of the most iconic examples I can think of.

Now that's all well and good, but you might say a completely silent protagonist doesn't really fit into this genre of game. And you would be right. It would be impossible to have this MC be completely silent. However, there are still techniques that you can use to make the MC more relatable to a wider base of players. 

A great example of how this can be done in this particular genre of game is 'Karlsson's Gambit'. I would highly recommend playing that game. The way the creator achieves a relatable MC is by tastefully integrating internal dialogue with choices. When the MC is interacting with other characters, there is often a point in the interaction where you as the player decide the internal dialogue of the character via options of dialogue or thoughts. This strategy is also used by bioware for games like 'The old Republic', or 'Mass effect.' In these games, there is close to no internal dialogue of the main character and customizable external dialogue for required interactions which may affect the direction of the story. 

By eliminating non necessary and oddly specific internal dialogue of the MC you make your character more appealing to a wider range of players.