[attack]

Good day lads,

Recently (actually for a few months now) I've been thinking about avoiding "bad" words in games.
By "bad" words, i mean words like "attack, kill, destroy, annihilate, loot, burn, guns, death".

Whilst working on my own project, i've got to the point where i have to make a tutorial, and add some text. And the fun begins here.

I can't find proper words to replace these "bad" words.
"attack the boss"
"while on move, tap, to attack. Kill the red cell"
"attack green cell and pick up upgrades"

As they say "as you think, so you become". We have enough man slaughtering games as it is.

Maybe someone knows some good sources, where such things are reviewed?
Or maybe someone has ant ideas, hints and thoughts on this matter?

Just a few ideas, depending on context:


attack
engage, take on, charge, "perform an attack", "fire your weapon", "swing your weapon" (the last three being related to more specific an action, depending on what weapon is equipped, for instance)

kill
vanquish, terminate, eliminate, finish, dispatch

destroy
obliterate, wipe out, annihilate, crush

annihilate
see above

loot
plunder, rob, pillage, despoil

burn
set fire to, set on fire, char, sear, ignite, torch

guns
firearms, weapons, pistols, rifles, revolvers, handguns

death
demise, end, extinction, ruin, obliteration

How does a character, who is isolated, develop? A story I'm telling has a character who has absolutely no contact with other people. Flashbacks and sentimental items are useful for the exposition, but don't provide much of a catalyst for character growth.

This could relate to video games (as in my case) or just in general: How do you develop such a character?

I'd go dig deep in his/her interactions with the world: even if only interacting with non-people, surely the character would have feelings and thoughts upon making contact with "things". Go there, try and express what the character thinks and feels, and try to imagine what the character would think if left in that situation for a long period of time.

Try imagining how you would react, where your thoughts would go, how would you keep your mind busy, how you would save yourself from going insane.  Or the opposite, how you'd appreciate being alone, having not to comply with social customs, and so on. Or, again, how you would start enjoying the situation only to "change" into despair after the "novelty" effect wore off.

You have quite a range of emotions and human psyche processes to explore there... Does this experience make your character better? Or worse? Does he keep positive and active, or does he give in to despair and just lets things happen to him? Does he find a renewed appreciation for humanity, or reverts back to bitterness shortly he rejoins society?

Just giving you a few prompts, I am not sure how your story develops so I can't really speculate too much. Hope it helps.

[snip]

Before I get too carried away here is our backstory: We are creating a medieval fantasy role-playing game. We have tons of lore, a nice big map all figured out, and tons of NPCs to add.
Each NPC will get their own dialogue, even though that may involve a few copy and pasted prompts, maybe.

Anyway, I have a few questions when it comes to writing natural, flowing dialogue. Most of them are personal preference.

1. How long should one 'slide' or 'prompt' of dialogue be? If a guard is telling you to explore a dungeon, do you want him to just tell you to go, or give you the details? Any estimate of how long those prompts should be?

It really depends on the context, on what came "before" the slide/prompt. If there was a long, meaningful conversation that led up to a request/question, it might be worth to write the prompt so that it sort of "recaps", or "recalls", the whole thing, rather than a short question implying a yes/no answer.

About the amount of details, it should again depend on context. To follow up on your example, if the guard just wants you to go into the dungeon, you could keep it short, but if the guard gave you details, motives, and information about why and how you should go to the dungeon, I personally would make a "prompt" that hints to all of that while expressing the question.

2. How many responses do you like to have? Do you like to have ten choices, so you can choose one that specifically fits your character? Or will three or four more general choices work just as well?

I am a bit of a freak, so I like 10 choices or so. Mind you, though, if it's just 10 different ways of expressing 3 basic replies, I would find that annoying. I do like my answers to mirror the character I'm playing and, if there is one, to be reflected in the character's own alignment and maybe even in the story or in the amount of information that NPC is going to give me. And yet again, it's contextual: some requests can lead up to a plain yes/no reply, other might branch into more an articulate follow-up.

3. How much dialogue should random NPCs(Those who do not give or take part in quests but are just there for flavor), have? I know some games leave them with one-liners or a general prompt or two and that's it? I personally like to be able to hold a conversation with every NPC, but I just want some more viewpoints.

Again, I like fully-dialogue-able NPCs. One good example of this would me Morrowind, where the player would be able to have a conversation with most NPC about the town, his quests, other NPCs, or general information about the world. Of course most of it would turn out to be the same identical conversation, but occasionally one NPC would reveal one or two additional details, really bringing the NPC population to "life", so to speak. One liners are a no-no-no, in my books: rather than one-liners, I'd have non-interactive NPCs with random lines spoken out, to contribute to the "background" noise of the scene.

[snip][/quote]

Personally, I'm for "show-it-all" approach.

With a few, due exceptions, I usually don't really listen to voice-over for a few reasons: it's usually of sub-par quality, it's usually slower than it takes me to read the text, and I usually "retain" more information through a reading process than through a listening one. Furthermore, I usually like imagining a character's voice (based on personal "stereotypes" that sort of reside in my subconscious), and I find myself often not liking the choice of voice actor. Similarly to when one watches a movie based on a book they have read before, and the actors in the movie don't look anything like the characters the reader had been imagining for years (Elijah Wood / Frodo, anyone?).

"Slowly-appearing" dialogue text always really got on my nerves. I suppose it was meant to "emulate" speech in games without any VO (stereotypically, console JRPGs of old), and even then I would find myself mashing the "display all" button furiously.

About your game, as people already suggested, maybe you could include the option to go either way, so to keep both "camps" happy.

Welcome to TIGForums! You should make a post to introduce yourself on http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45.0

I always associate any type of pipe game with Lucasarts' Pipe Dream. I think I even remember people referring to the hacking sections of Bioshock as "playing Pipe Dream." In other words, I think the name already means something to a lot of people. I think you should pick a different title, at least for search engines' sakes.

I hate it when I come up with a great name for a game only to find out it was already taken in the 80's.

This, exactly this. Let us know what alternatives you come up with, if you want any kind of feedback.

[writing]

Hello everyone,

I'm Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate!

Oh well, anyway. The nick's Guybrush, which says a lot about which game is my favourite. I had my first computer gaming experience on a C64 in 1986, and the only games available to me were Green Berets, Zaxxon, and The Muncher. however, these three games (which I played over and over again) were enough to get me hooked up on the whole PC gaming thing, which totally blew my mind once I gained possession of a most glorious 386DX-based PC, with 210Mb HDD.

Aaaaanyway, a few years and a lots of (played) games later, here I am, and entirely different person on an entirely different path. I still do enjoy videogames a lot (again, on PC only), and I would love to get involved with the production of one: (un)fortunately my sole skill that could be vaguely useful is writing, which I do a lot of both for leisure and in my line of work.

Soooo, here I am. nice to meet you all.