Game Design Foundations (Wordware Game and Graphics Library)

Since nonlinear or “game”-oriented scripts can jump from scene to scene as the player (now in charge) commands, there must be a way to connect dialog with the dynamically created story. By labeling each section of dialog and allowing “condition” comments, we can design our vision using the same scenario with varying responses based on preexisting conditions.

Label: ALICE-06-001 (Chapter 6, first time)Condition: Alice enters the Duchess’ kitchen (first time)

ALICE

Hello. I’m Alice.

What a nice baby you have.

Label: ALICE-06-002 (Chapter 6, after first time)Condition: Alice enters the Duchess’ kitchen (after first time)

ALICE Hello. Nice to see you again, Duchess. My has the pig, eh...baby grown.

Label: ALICE-06-005 (Chapter 6, after first time)Condition: Alice enters the Duchess’ kitchen (after first time)

ALICE Hello, again. Boy, I sure come here often. May I hold the baby?

The dialog does not follow a linear story; therefore the scripting should follow the game flow and the actors’ dialogue should look exactly like their standard script format. This technique assures us that the game will have all of the script conditions and voice-over parts to shoot, and the talent (which we will be working with from outside the gaming industry) will view us as professional and understand the work we need them to perform. By providing our needs in this format, we can get the talent to read their lines based on our game’s conditions, price out the costs for their efforts, and have many verbal variations so our gameplayers won’t be bored or frazzled by hearing the same repeated dialog every time they enter the Duchess’ kitchen.