I’ve been closely studying dialogue and cinematography in video games lately. Try to detach the dialogue system from the dialogue. What’s the best? Was it technically multiple systems or just one?
This wasn’t wholly your question but you might like to look into what NOT to do with LA Noire. Originally the game’s dialogue options were labeled, “Coax,” “Force,” and “Lie.” You play a 1940’s police detective who has to solve crimes, so dialogue naturally comes up when you are interviewing witnesses or interrogating suspects. However, Rockstar as publisher made a shock change late in development where the devs had to change the options to “Truth,” “Doubt,” and “Lie.” These options, however, don’t actually quite fit with the actual dialogue of the game. Something I noticed a lot when I played the game was when I selected “Doubt,” to theoretically doubt what I thought was an obvious logical error or a half-truth, phelps instead just started screaming at the top of his lungs about executing people. Or other times I’d select “Truth” because the witness wasn’t lying but just being cautious with their words. It turns out that option was ‘wrong’ because I didn’t force out the key info I needed.
It wasn’t until I learned later on in my playthrough of this fatal publisher error that I instantly became way better at the game. Just had to switch around the words in my mind to what the original devs intended. Later releases of the game had “Truth” and “Doubt” changed to “Good cop” and “bad cop” but both of those also don’t really fit too well. Phelps isn’t always bad cop when forcing the truth, sometimes he’s just yelling because the witness is an asshole.
The reason Lie was never changed is because when you select Lie, you’re doubting their version and coming up with evidence to prove the contrary, like in Ace Attorney.
Just a little thing to keep in mind about dialogue options. Even though the words “Coax” and “Force” sound a little… advanced I guess, they still work way better mentally just because they actually describe the options. Truth and Doubt might help you reach a younger or less intelligent audience, but they don’t work because they don’t actually describe what the options give.
Oxenfree
The dialogues are super fluid and dynamic. You can interrupt people and even steer conversations towards other topics with your choices. Conversations are in realtime. Dialogues feel so natural, you really should look it up if game dialogue design is something you find interesting.
Alpha Protocol.
At first it seems like standard bioware multichoice like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, but there is also a time limit for you to make your decision.
This might sound frustrating, and some players hates this system as they wanted time to read and make the right choice, but I think it fits this game perfectly as you’re playing a Secret Agent where time is of the essence and the stakes are high, it really sets the tempo for the game.
IIRC in Alpha Protocol it picks one of the options by default right? Or does it leave you the option to stay silent?
It’s been a while, but yes I think it picks a default option or the currently selected one
I seem to remember there was a skill you could invest points into that would increase the conversation timer also.
Right. The “wait to remain silent” thing can take some getting used to, especially in the sort of game where you feel like your character would have a lot of questions, but I much prefer it to a default choice being made. I recently replayed one of Telltale’s games and I really enjoyed the way I could use silence as a tool. The game was The Wolf Among Us, where you play a detective who interrogates people a lot, and I used the time-honored interrogation technique of just remaining silent to make someone talk more.
Right now my mind is being blown away by Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s not the type of game I’d get into since I tried Divinity Original Sin 2 and couldn’t get more than 6 hours into it without feeling like I was stupid. I am bad at the combat system, but it more than makes up for it in Baldur’s Gate when you learn more about the Lore and character development. Their writing reminds me of Witcher 3, and that’s probably the last great single player game I’ve played recently aside from Elden Ring.
