next »

[teatreegames]

I was thinking of making dialogue text fade in and out instead of the traditional one letter or one word at a time, but not sure if it would look that great and the latter seems more nostalgic; any thoughts?

[Alec S.]

I think the thing to consider is what the purpose would be.  One letter at a time kind of helps the player's eye follow along with a wall of text, and can also be used to imply something about phrasing (like if there's an extra long pause before a word, or if each letter in a word comes in more slowly).  Meanwhile just putting the wall of text on the screen lets people read entirely at their own pace.  It seems to me having text fade in would be like the wall of text but be a bit harder to read for the first couple of seconds.

[teatreegames]

I think the thing to consider is what the purpose would be.  One letter at a time kind of helps the player's eye follow along with a wall of text, and can also be used to imply something about phrasing (like if there's an extra long pause before a word, or if each letter in a word comes in more slowly).  Meanwhile just putting the wall of text on the screen lets people read entirely at their own pace.  It seems to me having text fade in would be like the wall of text but be a bit harder to read for the first couple of seconds.

I should point out that the fade in / out would be pretty quick and is just to make it look more elegant than making the text immediately appear. When the text fades out completely, then the dialogue menu would close with it.. Maybe it's not such a great idea, I was just trying to think of interesting alternatives.

One word at a time is nice, I suppose as long as the option to speed it up / skip to the next string is there.

[Alec S.]

If it fades in quickly, that would probably look alright.  Are you planning on making it fade in all at once or progressively (like a fading version of one letter/word at a time)

[teatreegames]

If it fades in quickly, that would probably look alright.  Are you planning on making it fade in all at once or progressively (like a fading version of one letter/word at a time)

The entire string would appear all at once, or that was the plan. I think it might look a bit off when engaged. A empty box would appear and the dialogue string would quickly materialize (then de-materialize and the box closes, when prompted to); seems better suited for something ghostly speaking.

I guess there's only one way to find out. Thank you!

[Koobazaur]

Play some Twine games. They do funky ways of revealing dialogue and can give some inspiration as well as idea of how the different effects "feel" to the player.

[teatreegames]

Play some Twine games. They do funky ways of revealing dialogue and can give some inspiration as well as idea of how the different effects "feel" to the player.

I'm not sure what Twine is. I don't get many relevant results when I search for Twine games.

In any case, this is what I ended up with:

[s0]

twine is this thing: https://twinery.org

software for making interactive fiction

[teatreegames]

twine is this thing: https://twinery.org

software for making interactive fiction

Oh! I'll definitely take a look at that, though I'd prefer just Python and graph paper for now. This was more-so about the graphical design aspect.

[s0]

i think koobazaur's point was, some of the games made in twine have interesting ways of presenting dialog graphically. not that i would know, i don't play them lol.

[Alec S.]

In any case, this is what I ended up with:

That looks pretty good!

[teatreegames]

i think koobazaur's point was, some of the games made in twine have interesting ways of presenting dialog graphically. not that i would know, i don't play them lol.

Ah, understood! I wasn't sure after I looked at the software and saw that it was for web sites; got a little confused.

That looks pretty good!

Thank you! Thought it would have looked a lot worse, but I guess it turned out okay!