Once More, With Feeling

Edit:  Modified first post to include screenshot and link to download.



Download Demo Here (ignore the VX in the URL)

End Edit

If you don't want to read my wall of text, please keep in mind that if you make your game a wall of text, I wont enjoy playing that either.

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That is the short and sweet version, and I know it sounds a little Rude, but I dont intend it to be.

I havent played too many of the games you guys have made, but one thing that I have noticed that appears to be a commonality in MOST of them is that the players are only reading text.  There is very little feeling to it.  And there is very little driving force to keep my interest.  I wont mention anyone or any game specifically, as I do not wish to insult anyone or their work directly, but just to offer some constructive criticism.

Making RPG's isnt a very serious thing for me, I've just been playing with it because it is kind of fun.  And I found that I fell into the same loop over and over and over again.  Tell a story, just whatever pops into my head, and nothing really worth sharing, but everythign felt completely dry.  Empty.  Hollow.  After 30 seconds of reading what I just wrote, I am bored and dont feel the slightest bit of compulsion to continue playing.  You know, the same old story.  Character gets intro'd.  Sometimes there is some brief intro text giving the characters name, maybe a bit of story, then at some point, the charater meets another charater, then its back to the "Here is a Wall of Text" read it, and you are expected to feel Emotion from it.

Imagine taking some Super Big Action Flick, and the characters stand there, they dont move, they look each other in the eye, and blather their scripts, without emotion, and completely without feeling.  We dont have voices in text based RPG games, so the emotion has to come from somewhere else.

The charactesr have to move around, there has to be Timing on WHEN the dialouge is delivered, and although the default engine only provides for turning 4 different directions, and their corresponding walk animations, a LOT can be done with that to add that feeling to the game.  Characters turing away from other characters, a small adjustment in their stance, (IE one of the walking animation frames) but that can be used to express so much.

But when two characters walk up to each other, stand there, and dont move, then deliver 30 Lines of dialouge, I get bored.  And I get bored very quickly.  I may have a short attention span, but think of how bored you are right now for reading this far into this post.  It is just text.  The WALL OF TEXT.  And so many of the games that I have tried suffer from the same problem.  If what I wrote here was your story, I may as well read a book.  And it isnt just the Hobbyists that suffer from this problem, even the Pros do to. 

SquareSoft for example.  You know.  The guys that made the Final Fantasy series?  And other truly fantastic all time favorites, like Chrono Trigger?  Let me dig into both of those really quick.  Chrono Trigger was an RPG made on hardware that our cheapest cellphones nowadays can blow out of the water.  And even to this day, I consider it to be THE BEST RPG OF ALL TIME (that is just my opinion).  Now, lets fast forward 5 generations of Gaming Consoles to the PS3 and XBox 360.  We end up with Final Fantasy 13 (XIII), and the difference between the two was astounding.

First of all, when I beat an enemy, Im not really interested in reading 3 pages of a Beastiary, then going back to reread Encyclopedia Final Fantastica to learn about what the hell is going on.  Half of the game is delivered by reading text on a tv screen in a day and age where the budgets for games like that are rivaling large movie studios.  Then I think back to an older game they did.  Chrono Trigger.  That game had some of the most animated and expressive characters that I can recall.  Each character had a huge (for its day) number of Sprites to perform and specify their emotions and actions.  The story had to be delivered TEXT ONLY due to the hardware limitations of the time, but the little polish that they did, by adding in so much animation helped me as a player become immersed in the story.  I wasnt just reading a WALL OF TEXT, as the developers of FFXIII apparently thought would be a good idea.  It isnt.  It sucks. 

Chrono Trigger is a Better Game than FFXIII.  And yes, that is my opinion, and I am sticking with it.  Sure, the newer game has prettier graphics, but great graphics do not a great game make.

So, I was trying to learn from my own mistakes, and ended up spending FOUR HOURS tweaking and fine tuning SIX LINES OF DIALOUGE.  It wasnt even a major plot point.  It was just an introduction between two characters.  They werent doing ridiculus things like running half way around the planet and back, they were behaving as we would expect we would behave in real life.  A bit of a pause here before responding to a question, look the other direction, then start text, and as the text is appearing, the character turns toward the other character as if their turn was in response to the first character speaking.   Just SIX lines of dialogue.  And I did not realize that I had spent so much time playing with the subtle pauses and gestures until I looked at my clock.  Obviously for me to write this wall of text means that I can type pretty fast.  +100 WPM or Words Per Minute.  But what I ended up with had Emotion.  It had Feeling.  It had something I could sink my teeth into. 

A lot of the time was spent trying to learn how to do stuff because I am not that experienced with the XP interface, none the less, what I ended up with was completely different.  Same text, but completely different.  It felt as if I had Breathed Life into a World!

So for all of you hobbyists and game creators out there, please do the people who play your games a favor.  Please dont just make us read a Wall of Text to tell your story.

Well, I'm sure the 2 people who beta test your game before you decide to stop making it will appreciate those 6 lines of dialogue you spent 4 hours of your valuable time that you will never get back perfecting.
HOBBYISTS ARE NOT PERFECTIONISTS. NEITHER ARE PROS.
But from what I just read, it's rather clear that you are. I don't disagree with you, I just want you to think realistically. Who in the hell is going to spend 40 minutes on each line of dialogue to MAYBE add SOME emotion to the experience of the average gamer, who, accept it, probably doesn't give a rodent's rear what your characters are thinking and want to get on with it, kill some mobs and save the world BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS IN GAMES?
I spent NO TIME PERFECTING THIS POST and I'm okay with it. I don't care if you are.

I know what you mean about the characters not really being expressive. Thinking back to Final Fantasy VI, I think that it was impressive to capture the attention of the player with only maybe four extra sprites per character and no enlarged facial display. It was all careful sprite movement, music and exactly edited scenes and script. I think that style is what I will aim for.

Im not asking for perfection, and I dont expect it.  Its also Constructive Criticism, it does come across as a little negative, but trying to suggest to people that it is something they can improve upon if they want a fanbase.

And sure, 4 hours is excessive, but I was also playing around with it, and learning some new things too.  Hell, I've wasted a lot more time than that doing other meaningless stuff, and for the time, it was keeping me entertained, and to me, that is what mattered.  One of the things I learned for example, (XP)during in the Set Move Route, the Wait command ends up making the sprite retain the last frame of animation instead of going back to the default stance.  The Wait that I figured I should be using ended up being the Event Wait, not Set Move Route Wait, if that makes any sense.  So yeah, Im still learning too.

The point was for Devs to not just take two sprites and make them face each other while verbal diahhrea fills up the screen.  Some people play games to run around and kill, others go for the story and dont care about the kills, some players enjoy the visuals and could care less about either the kills or the story.  And some of the Devs (not really me) take pride in their work and I respect the effort.  What I'm saying is that it I feel bad for telling someone their game sucks, and not because they didnt do it "My Way", but because it lacks some element that some Devs may want to convey to their players.  Im sure some Devs focus on combat systems, and that is great, but there are a ton of Devs out there, all of them would like to be proud of their work, and I feel like a dick for playing their game that I'm supposed to be able to sink my teeth into and just dont get what that Dev would really like for me to get out of their efforts.

No need to elaborate, I know exactly what you mean. Your ideals are perfectly fine, I somewhat agree with you. But I still think it's insanely ridiculous to expect hobbyists to do stuff like that all throughout their game especially if they're doing it for fun. The aim is to make your game YOUR GAME. Really, the ideal game maker in theory is someone who doesn't give a shit what anyone else thinks, but history has taught us otherwise in practice.
Yes, it gets boring (really boring in a lot of cases) watching two or three 2-Dimensional characters in all senses of the phrase blatantly stating plot lines and exactly what you have to do, but as long as there is one person who likes the game the developer has done well.

Wait... we're supposed to just read the walls of text?  Dang, no wonder I'm always confused...   I skip as much as possible and continue on with the game XD   lol 

Edit: I get your point, but I do wonder how many people actually read it all =)

tl;dr, however from what I gather based on skimming replies, you spend to long perfecting dialogue to perfectly get across meaning and emotions.

In a short story, you're limited by how many characters you can use, so must think carefully about your words to convey the meaning you wish.

In a novel however, you are not. Instead of using precise wording to convey meaning, you use story. Dialogue doesn't need to be perfect, it only needs to be consistent.

So I guess the point I'm trying to make is; what sort of game are you going to make? A short poetic piece, or a longer epic game? If the latter then you need to stop being so nitpicky, or it'll never be finished and no-one will ever get to hear your message.

Dialogue doesn't need to be perfect, it only needs to be consistent.

Well, I have to print this on a t-shirt now. I hope you're happy.

Fantastic name for a poster that insists everyone play his game!   

And, @tl:dr is exactly the point.  Character Lines can be minimal and to the point, but a tad of motion between the lines goes a very long way.  A little Motion adds a lot of Emotion, for those who are looking to put it in.

Fantastic name for a poster that insists everyone play his game!   

What?

Fantastic name for a poster that insists everyone play his game!   

What?

I believe that he's talking about the person in the post you linked to.  : o  And I read through that thread ... pretty crazy.

Also, there will be those who take their game crafting hobby more seriously than others. I think that this topic is more aimed towards them and less towards those who are only doing it because its fun for them to do so. Which is completely understandable.

Oh, Bullshit.

I was being sarcastic.  And yes, that... person... took that way way too seriously.

I have to say, that in a strange change of pace, I completely agree with everything that you said.

With everything Who said?

Not saying I disagree with PacMan on any level, he does have very valid points...

And I don't disagree with you, I'm just trying to make you think more realistically.

And Holk means you, Heretic.
I think.

You're right.  One thing to consider is the learning curve.  Obviously I am pretty new around here and dont have that much experience, so Im still getting used to where the event buttons are and what not.

Anyway, since it isnt that big of a deal, I ripped out a bunch of the content I made to put together a small demo.  Just trying to see if you enjoy playing it at all.  If you do, then maybe it is worth my time to spend animating characters with four poses, and I dont think too many people will actually download it either, if I'm lucky, maybe two?  lol



http://www.775.net/~heretic/downloads/rmvx/

I just want to see if anyone liked it at all...

Although it was a very quick demo, it was quite nice. The layout of the area was well done and I thought that the banter while walking was a nice touch. I was under the impression that the two main characters were far older than the bullies and that caused me to wonder just what they hit him with that was stronger than the sting of a huge bee.

I'm not really liking the solid text bubbles ... I can't really place it, but it feels like they distract from the scenic flow of things. Paired with the text, it has a sort of cartoon-ish feel to speech. Perhaps if they were transparent and used different graphics instead of all white?

At any rate, for a demo you've done a great job of organizing the area and making sure that the characters came to life with text and motion during cut scenes.

I appreciate the reply.

The Text Bubble thing was one of Zeriab and someone elses projects called Multiple Message Windows.  I dont know if I can set a transparency on the speech window, but I think that would look nice also.  There are a few other bugs that I found in that script that affected movement, but was able to work around em so far.  The bubbles themselves are graphics included with the demo, and I havent really messed with them. 

I guess I could try setting a partial transparency in it maybe?  Not sure if it is supported...

I'll have to look around and see if there is another slightly older looking sprite, like you said, possibly too much age difference, or have to come up with one on Backwater...  Earlier in the story, the Main character is established to be about 19, so the Bully named "Mouth" I figure should be about 16-17 or so?  And I'm not sure if that sprite fits that age range...

But all in all, not bad (could be better) for my first map?

  It wouldn't let me play it, it says missing RGSS102E. Anyways, with text, I find it better for character's chat to be more personal and unique. I find it more interesting explaining the storyline through actions and discovery instead of people going bla bla bla. I think a good way to stuff a chunk of storyline into a game (if you want to anyway), is to make like books or tablets you can read somewhere. Having to read large volleys of texts should always be optional, since if someone beat your game, it would just be a hassle replaying or playing on higher difficulty. If there is going to be a lot of text, it should all be emotional, or even change the music during so. I find thought bubbles and "realistic pauses" overdoing it though.

Wouldn't let me play the demo either. Same error as in above post.
Looking at the screenshot; the text bubbles don't match the rest of the graphics style of the game at all. Although it would be a nice idea if the graphics were made more cartoony.

So, I was trying to learn from my own mistakes, and ended up spending FOUR HOURS tweaking and fine tuning SIX LINES OF DIALOUGE.  It wasnt even a major plot point.  It was just an introduction between two characters.  They werent doing ridiculus things like running half way around the planet and back, they were behaving as we would expect we would behave in real life.  A bit of a pause here before responding to a question, look the other direction, then start text, and as the text is appearing, the character turns toward the other character as if their turn was in response to the first character speaking.   Just SIX lines of dialogue.  And I did not realize that I had spent so much time playing with the subtle pauses and gestures until I looked at my clock.  Obviously for me to write this wall of text means that I can type pretty fast.  +100 WPM or Words Per Minute.  But what I ended up with had Emotion.  It had Feeling.  It had something I could sink my teeth into.

I think if every game maker started spending 1 hour on adding a single line of dialogue no game would ever get finished.

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?rgss102e

Or just download RPG Maker XP.

It threw me off cuz it says download/rmvx at the end xD

On the DLL file missing, isnt that part of the normal Runtime Package?

RMVX (nm I found it! in the URL) My bad!

  It wouldn't let me play it, it says missing RGSS102E. Anyways, with text, I find it better for character's chat to be more personal and unique. I find it more interesting explaining the storyline through actions and discovery instead of people going bla bla bla. I think a good way to stuff a chunk of storyline into a game (if you want to anyway), is to make like books or tablets you can read somewhere. Having to read large volleys of texts should always be optional, since if someone beat your game, it would just be a hassle replaying or playing on higher difficulty. If there is going to be a lot of text, it should all be emotional, or even change the music during so. I find thought bubbles and "realistic pauses" overdoing it though.

Sounds like you got it to run okay.

I agree, especially with replay value, although I didn't really put a difficulty script in, and that Forest scene is essencially the first time the player enters combat, so it is also Tutorialized.  If someone dies during a big boss fight, they wont want to re-read the same dialogue prior to the fight.  Im still trying to work out a Style that people will enjoy playing and I'll enjoy making, but I'm thinking at minimum is only a few lines of dialogue, with animation, but powerful enough it can be just skipped through briefly, then allow the player to Walk Away from the fight in order to save so they dont have to put up with it again.  So I'll have to work on that.  As far as Story vs ammt of text, I think it will probably start off with moderate quantity of text, get the player going, then taper down toward less text, probably contained to banter while walking and not like a full on cutscene where all action is taken away from the player.  That way the dialogue can still be delivered without stopping the game, which is one of the things that I liked about this script with the chat bubbles.

Now that you mention it, that was my big issue when I was trying to work out the kinks of this Multiple Message Windows script (mostly for the Caterpillar, but I liked the cartoony chat bubbles over the huge window at the bottom / top of the screen for dialogue).  The issue I was running into was during a "Hi, what's your name?" cutscene where the control was taken away from the player, I had the main character taking three steps while delivering the dialogue, but the speech bubble would freeze in place and the character kept walking, or the player was able to control the character when the speech bubble was visible, and that was due to a script line "message.move_during = true". 

The solution there was a Wait command during Event Move route, then turning the "Move During" in the script on then off again.  Set Move Route: Move, Move, Move, Wait 999 frames, message.move_during=true, Text: "Hi, what's your name?", message.move_during = false, script: "message.move_during = false", Set Move Route: Wait 1 Frame, Wait for Move's Completion.  Ok, that was long winded, but that was what was giving me the difficulty.  The main character has big problems Walking and Talking at the same time, just like me!    Point is, now that i have that figured out, it takes two seconds to do the same thing now instead of 4 hours trying to figure out why the bubble stays in place or the player can move when the bub is on screen.  Like I said, learning experience.

But I do agree with you somewhat about story being delivered that is skippable, but certain portions just arent doable without some dialogue between characters.  The Major plot points.  Minor can be included, like you said, by examining an object or a book.  What I wanted to do was to make that Major plot point dialogue personal and unique for each character, but give the characters more animation than just standing face to face and throwing dialogue at each other.  Give the actors something else to do, but I dont know if the style of those chat bubbles + animation + dialogue is too distracting, detracting from the game more than it adds to it.  I'm just hoping to come up with a style that is Satisfying to players, but I dont think I've really nailed it yet.

Nothing is really finalized.

Transparency:  Cant get it to work right.  The background part I can set as transparent, but the corners I can't get to appear as transluscent, even when the graphics file does contain the transparency.  Over my head on how to do that, but I guess I'll just stick with the Solid white background.  Unless one of you geniuses has a clue as to why the corners wont render transparently / transluscently...

Sorry, I didn't try the demo in the last comment but I did now (I forgot to download the text files)
I do like the bubbles and pauses before the chat, the only thing I didn't like was the animation while talking.
I didn't really see a clash with the chat bubbles and the environment, I think they're pretty cool. I personally would just make them a colored rectangle, maybe like black or dark blue with white letters (maybe even give player choice of color).
I think the "show balloon icon" event is very nice unless it's spammed, which I see some people do.
In this case I liked it all except, what I mentioned earlier, the people kicking their foot out while their talking xD
You should also have it where, after they turn to look at the screen(you), they look back at what they were beforehand after whatever action or speaking they're doing.

Do you think a different sprite while speaking would work?  I wanted to offer a bit of contrast from a default standing pose that subtley gestures they are speaking?  Moving ones feet while talking does look lame, just not sure what to put in place of it.  Arm gesture only?  One arm, both arms?  I think an opening and closing mouth would look excessively goofy...

Do you think they should turn back toward what ever they were looking at even if it triggers the next dialogue or action?  I think that fire event needs work, but fire events I'll try to use for camping, so later on, once the player knows what they are, wont need to be anywhere nearly as bad as a person taking a laxative for their verbal diahhrea...

The problem is that there are limitations.

And most games these days aren't going "I was hit with a fireball. I took 2 steps back. The pain was excruciating"

They do this

-play battle animation: Fireball
-flash sprite red
-display text: "AHHHHH"
-move sprite back. pause. move sprite back.
-display text: "OH MY GOD!"

Ta-da. More lively. Trying to capture emotion with characters that are so far fetched from your view of reality is difficult. Yes, there could be a little more animation but considering half our faces don't even come with emotion versions, it's not necessarily easy. Also keep in mind different games have different focuses. I can make an RPG but the game isn't focused on the story (what I'm making right now). On the other hand people make completely animated, no gameplay, "Shows" out of RPG maker and they have been very popular. Evidently, story and emotion are very important there.

Making the characters more lively is definitely something I have to keep in mind.  What I was really hoping to do is to try to make the conversations more interesting, or at least, provide what I thought would be a semi decent example for making conversations more interesting, during the heavy dialogue parts of the game.

Skippable is something I think should be an option because once dialogue has been read once, it gets really tedious to read again and again and again, and again, then after that, again, or if you die, you read it again, or if you liked the game, you have to read it again. 

A lot of emotion can be expressed through the music you choose for a scene.
Also, if you want the characters to be more expressive when speaking, why not use facesets?

Is there a decent mod to add facesets with that bubble chat mod thingy?  Im also not very artisticly gifted, so I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I rely on the text and dialogue, and music, to convey emotion...

There are a ton of faceset scripts, and also a ton of facesets.
CCOA's UMS should be able to do what you want. For facesets, you can probably find all you need by just googling. Celianna has a faceset generator on rpgmakervx.net if you need specific edits, though I think you might have to sign up to see it.

Im trying a visual experiment on this project with cave walls.  I had a hard time trying to figure out how to make them look more interesting.   Instead of like a room, I came up with this goofy cracked wall style where the cave recesses all over the place.  Although the player wont be able to go in every crack, I put it there just to add some visual interest.  As a maze, it seems to make things more confusing than they really are.  And yes, unfortuantely it is one of the default cave tilesets that came with the game.  Im trying my best to figure out how to work with what I've got and take it to the max!

How does this look to you guys?  Look good?  Scrap it?  Need more / less decoration?  etc... 

I think it's a pretty nice technique. The bottom middle portion looks a little too straight in comparison to the top though. It might look better if it were just floor, unless you don't want that part of the cave accessible from there.

Anything with a floor will be accessable, as well as some other spots where the lack of presence of a floor doesnt necessarily mean you cant get there.  Basically cracks that are wider than others.  I should have also mentioned that I plan on doing caves with Lanterns, so beyond five or six tiles, you wont really be able to see the lack of detail, but you should be able to see far enough to spot treasure chests and indicate that you'll have to walk around and find your way to the chests, even if the maze itself is not that complex.  It is just supposed to look complex.



Of course, the real map is much larger, but shouldnt be that difficult to navigate, even with limited visibility.  Im mostly looking at about five or six tiles from the wall into the darkness, thats what I thought needed to be visually interesting instead of straight flat convex walls.



Think that is too much?

Seems like soemthing really hard to do, maybe put some sort of beeper that gets louder the closer you are to the right path?

A huge cavern where you only get to see a small radius around you sounds really frustrating. I'd take out the lantern, or implement a minimap or something.

Maybe I should make the Lantern Radius a little larger?

Make it a little larger and actually sliiiiightly transparent. Least that's what usually works for me.

Make it a little larger and actually sliiiiightly transparent. Least that's what usually works for me.

Before: 



After



Its a little larger, and very slightly transparent for the whole screen (opacity 230).  And, just so nobody panics, the edges of the actually fairly simple maze are visible within the radius of the faked light source.  And yes, the character is walking behind the climbable ladder.  That works correctly.