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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i feel like today's games' textboxes (in indie game rpgs, visual novels, etc.) could learn a lot from classic games, but often don't. here's a few things that i found interesting about textboxes in classic games, some of which (but not all of which) i have done in my own games:

- having a voice-like sound effect, different for different characters, which can be heard as the text appears. this is sometimes still done, but i wish it were more common than it is. good examples are the snes lufia games

- having grammatical pauses. i feel like, when the game is scrolling in letter by letter, it's best to pause at punctuation. it's boring for the text to appear letter by letter at a single rate, because that's now how people read; we read in chunks, word by word. so i think it's better if, within a word, letters appear quickly, followed by pauses between words, and longer pauses for punctuation

- having dramatic pauses. this can work with the above, in addition to it. if someone is speaking slowly, or sad, or hesitant, their text could appear more slowly, with pauses before particular words that are hard for them to say

- similarly, excited speech can appear more quickly, or a phrase can appear all at once to symbolize yelling

- textboxes appearing over other textboxes, and multiple textboxes at once. final fantasy 7 did this quite a bit, to symbolize several people talking at once, or interruptions. i thought it was pretty effective, such as when cloud says 'shut up' to sephiroth, interrupting his rambling speech, the shut up box appeared on top of his box, hiding what he was saying

- colored or bolded or italicized text can work to highlight special terms or names or other information that you don't want the player to miss

- if a portrait accompanies the textbox, the portrait's mouth can move along with the words, opening and closing when a word is appearing, and being closed when the letters have all appeared or during pauses

- shaking or wobbling text can occasionally be used for interesting effects, as can oversized or undersized text (for yelling or whispers)

- jumbled or squished text can be used to illustrate someone who is hard to understand or who mumbles a lot

if anyone has anything to add to this list, or anything to say about anything in this list, reply!

[ink.inc]

:D

other games that did this well:

golden sun:
-dramatic pauses, wavery text, warble sound for voices... actually, it did all the things you listed

[moi]

you just make the textbox, it's not difficult, you're the develloper no?

[Capntastic]

:D

other games that did this well:
golden sun:
-dramatic pauses, wavery text, warble sound for voices... actually, it did all the things you listed

Shining Force 2's merely had different pitches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Y7aAzbHSJt8#t=4062s

It accomplished its task well.

Henry Hatsworth went one better by having dialogue be voiced by amalgamated sound effects representing crude audioform's of speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GSOmMDGhv9I#t=16s

It was pretty damned charming.

[Cobralad]

Well, Animal Crossing, Chulip,and Mario RPGs use all that "speech" stuff, and they are more recent games.

[Panurge]

 I agree with all of that. I love seeing text displayed creatively rather than simply blasted or streamed onto the screen. It can add a lot to the experience.

Another trick which used to be commonly used was to slow right down for ellipses - one dot at a time - when a character paused for dramatic effect.

[Ant]

- if a portrait accompanies the textbox, the portrait's mouth can move along with the words, opening and closing when a word is appearing, and being closed when the letters have all appeared or during pauses

Or if you don't have a portrait at least have the player's sprite mouth do something. For lofi stuff just a black box with random alpha is enough.


Also if you're going for typewriter text then pls for the love of god don't centre align it. Having to read text that moves fast (until all the text is shown) is super annoying.

[mysteriosum]

Banjo-Kazooie takes the 'voice-like' sound effects thing and run with it.

Earthbound's menus & text boxes are some of my favourites. They also use 'voice-like' sound effects, but not for speech - they use them for selecting, closing, opening, as warnings or questions to the player... it gives it a particular, quirky character that fits perfectly within the game's aesthetics.

[Player 3]

I would swear Animal Crossing used some crude text-to-speech thing if you listen close enough.

[mysteriosum]

I would swear Animal Crossing used some crude text-to-speech thing if you listen close enough.

That reminds me! Killer 7 used text and voice extremely well. The voice-over doesn't sound like anything coherent at first. Then, you realize that they're saying a garbled paraphrase of the text. It becomes really creepy at that point... They also use shaky letters and things like that in letters that give a lot of character to the writer and the game itself.

[ithamore]

If you want a non-game reference for inspiration and/or a change of perspective, I would suggest the "Little Lit" series.

[Emre]

I like this reminder of the importance of expression in character interaction. Thanks for the list, Paul.

[GhostBomb]

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door does this extremely well.

One thing you could add that's done in Paper Mario is little mini text boxes that don't interrupt gameplay that are used to show side conversations or events like the guy getting mugged in one of the very first scenes.

[Ben_Hurr]

Okami sounds like a good example of what you're talking about, paul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dAVqps0elpo#t=221s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZG_aP5MJzxI#t=23s

...

Henry Hatsworth went one better by having dialogue be voiced by amalgamated sound effects representing crude audioform's of speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GSOmMDGhv9I#t=16s

It was pretty damned charming.

Oh my goodness that's annoying. 
Why whole voice clips for each word?

[Montoli]

Paper Mario Thousand Year Door does this extremely well.

I agree about Thousand Year Door!  That game did amazing things with text boxes.  It added a LOT to the dialog through alternate fonts, alternate sizes, and a fair amount of animated text.

I'd actually forgotten about the background "side conversations" in that game, but you're absolutely right - those also totally belong in this conversation.  That was such a good game, and they did a lot of things dead-right, I thought, but even so, I still fondly remember it as "that game with the awesome text"

[ProggleRock]

I can agree with most of this. In lieu of (good) voice acting, I think it's important to make the text as expressive as possible. Timing and rhythm and all that is extremely important, but -- especially if there's a lot of it -- spending that much time customizing each line to satisfaction can certainly be deemed a waste.

I also think it's important to not interrupt the flow of the dialogue with a prompt after each line. This can obviously pose problems, as seen in Double Fine's Costume Quest. The dialogue simply moved too fast, often leaving players punch line-less. Some people just read slower or faster than others, making purely-textual rhythm and emphasis hard to properly time.

[Graham-]

Speaking of FF7, I loved how the characters gestured.

They had a few gestures each, but they were so effective. To me, Cloud will always be that little low-polygon model, not the 'cool' hipster trash he is so often referenced as.

[sebaslive]

I could never forget Barret and his shouting gestures and Cloud always doing his I Don't Know? W Pose. This is a great list for textboxes and possibly a reference for what can be achieved in the future of textboxes.

[Hangedman]

I would swear Animal Crossing used some crude text-to-speech thing if you listen close enough.

When you type on the in-game keyboard, you can hear the individual letter sounds. Dialogue is just those same sounds, distorted and pitch-shifted, played extremely quickly and overlapping. When they're mashed together fast enough, they sort of approximate the words. And I think the letters are given minor variance in pitch, to sound like varied tones in speech.

It's a really neat technique and something I want to use in a future game

[Graham-]

banjo kazooie is annoying as fuck, and endearing. (it had the "voice approx" thing)