Via
Robert Yang’s post on contextual narrative
, I spent 20 minutes poring over the details of this
GDC talk about dynamic dialog
. There’s some great stuff in the presentation I wanted to pull out and discuss.
Essentially, the talk boils down to the difference between this (page 49 of the pdf):
and this (page 50):
The two slides illustrate the exact same “facts”, but anyone who isn’t a C programmer can’t understand the line (((C_orb*)), while it’s a bit easier to parse “MagicOrb.charges = 12” (It means the magic orb has a property called “charges” which is equal to 12).
However, the big difference is that the first slide needs to be embedded in the game logic – which, as the talk points out, means only programmers can go in to add places for dialogue to get triggered. This results in a “homework assignment” for writers, where they go fill in the places where programmers thought there should be dialogue. Obviously, that’s a problem:
So Valve ends up solving this problem with a tool for its writers. The tool strips away the complexity of programming and ends up exposing all of the facts about the world. Then the person writing the tool talks to the writers to find out how
they
want to edit scripts (e.g. a database program or Excel or a fancy graphical tool). This way, the writers have a tool they can use practically that gives them the information they need. The result is dialogue that is varied, interesting, and not limited by how many times a writer goes to the programmers and begs for additional writing cues to be added.
End Summary.
The idea is basically the right tools for the right job. In this case, programming tools aren’t the best tools for a writing job. The corollary is Valve has great dialogue in part because their tools allow for great dialogue to be written. It could be done the complicated way, but it’s faster and easier to do it this way.
The tools we use shape the end result. Better tools lead to better results. The trick is spending the time and effort on creating the right tools for the job.
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