Alora Fane

I've been writing some dialogue scenes this week! Also my new PC arrived! And a bit of a follow-up about the Ukraine war and the post I wrote about that recently.

Have I been writing these on Fridays or Saturdays? I can't even remember!

Productivity's been fairly meh this week. I've done stuff every day, but not as much as I potentially could have due to the usual mental health issues. Random anxiety coming from nowhere. Do you ever experience this thing where, while sitting at your computer as normal, you feel like you're dizzy, falling, passing out or similar for just a split second for no apparent reason? No? I don't know if it's an anxiety thing or a result of my physical brain tumour etc. Probably a bit of both!

When I've not been working myself up about weird little sensations like that - there's always one little niggle, different every week, never multiple at once - I've been working on writing some dialogue scenes. Essentially, the starting area/dungeon/whatever (or the one after the nightmare intro), the Sprouting Isle, has a series of battles that begin with tutorial scenes that introduce gameplay mechanics one by one with a bit of character stuff to make them hopefully at least mildly interesting.

Back when I made MARDEK, the dialogue I wrote was very much whatever came to mind at the time, very much a first draft, barely edited, if at all. Each dialogue box tended to have quite a lot of words, too:

Around the time of Taming Dreams (I think?), I started aiming to structure dialogue scenes as a series of very short lines instead, just a handful of words per text box. That's the direction I'm going in with Atonal Dreams too. I'm also being very particular about the exact wording to make sure every short line flows well and connects with previous and/or future scenes and the story in general, or has value in itself. So even though the word count for each dialogue scene is probably significantly less than for most scenes in MARDEK, they're taking me longer to write.

(Though just getting older and feeling tired all the time are probably contributing factors for things taking longer, too.)

I noticed while playing Pokemon games recently - Legends: Arceus and Brilliant Diamond - that dialogue scenes in those tend to be extremely brief. Only a handful of dialogue boxes, each containing just a handful of words. But maybe that's the ideal length? They never felt too short, exactly, and I suppose many - most? - players would see dialogue as a nuisance to push through rather than a reward in itself. I still remember people saying they just skip all the dialogue in RPGs, including MARDEK. So alien to me.

I do wonder though how long dialogue scenes 'should' be! Are what I'm writing too long?

Here's a screenshot of one of the tutorial scenes I wrote this week, in the dialogue editor thing I made for myself:

The column on the right contains the spoken lines; if I click one, the scene switches to it and I can edit it. There are only a couple offscreen; I counted 36 with spoken words, the longest being similar to the one in the screenshot, the shortest being a single word (eg 'woof'). Oh, and there are some which are just second-long pauses.

These scenes play at the start of battles, meaning the characters were talking while the battle music played, which didn't feel right to me (especially since the 'Dynamusic' for battles is nonmelodic, as the melodies are added by the player summoning). So I spent an hour or two composing a special piece for them which I quite like, and which I hope will feel more appropriate than the battle music playing.

These scenes feel like the main big thing that I need to do before I can run another alpha test, and I've almost finished them now, I think? There aren't all that many of them. There are still some features and bugs I'll need to add fix though, and I suppose I still need to add particle and sound effects, hmm... I'm getting close to being done enough to move onto the next stage, though. Maybe I've been saying that for weeks!

My new PC has arrived! I've yet to take it out of its box though; I'll likely have to spend at least a day setting everything up and transferring over files. I wasn't certain of the best way to transfer large amounts of files, so I looked it up, and apparently people typically use external USB hard drives for that. I used a bridging cable last time, but I have no idea where it is anymore, and buying a new one seemed like it'd have limited usefulness compared to an external hard drive for about the same price, which I could use as an additional backup for at least some files. So I bought one of those, and can't do much with my new PC anyway until it arrives!

My parents are going on YET ANOTHER holiday next week, so I'm unsure how much work I'll be able to get done since I have to look after the neighbouring community hall and needy dog, which throws me off mentally more than it would for someone well-adjusted. I'd like to do at least something on Atonal Dreams, but I suppose I'll see how things turn out. If nothing else, hopefully I'll be able to set up my new PC and stuff.

I keep thinking about posting more music on Patreon and/or YouTube, but keep putting it off due to doubt that anyone would care.

Oh, and I wrote ∞ this post about the Ukraine war the other day ∞, and wanted to say something more about that because it apparently sounded like I was a 'Russian apologist' or something. I get the impression that when people typically speak out about things like this, if it's not purely virtue signalling, then it comes from a belief that their words would have some meaningful impact on the situation. Maybe as a result of negatively biased thinking - learned helplessness, a lack of self-efficacy - I believe that anything I'd say about how atrocious the war is or whatever would have zero impact on the reality of the situation, but what I can maybe control is how I feel about it, how anxious I am about it.

There's this well-known thing called the Serenity Prayer that was mentioned in pretty much all of the anxiety and meditation group things I went to:

I saw posts on Reddit about how Putin had GONE MAD and was likely to press the End World button because he was out of his mind, but understanding the complex political reasons behind his actions - that is, they weren't just a random act of gibbering madness, but more a calculated attempt at essentially self-preservation - calmed the fears I had about that outcome. I can't control what Putin will do, but I can control how much my imagination anxiously runs away with apocalyptic hypotheticals.

I've since read more about the lived experience of actual Russian citizens - and how much corruption and propaganda there is there - and it sounds truly terrible. I loathe how probably sociopathic individuals rise to power and make lives miserable for others purely for personal gain.

Like with anything outside my sphere of actual influence, though, I'll just keep observing from afar - trying to calm my anxiety enough to get work done - rather than changing my display picture to the Ukrainian flag or whatever. That sort of thing feels like using a tragic situation for personal gain to me.

7 COMMENTS

kidupiscean37~3Y

The length of a story/scene is linked to its dialogue, especially in the current case where most of the story is told through dialogue.

I think for the players who don't like reading dialogue, there's nothing that can be done except providing them with a "skip dialogue" option.

I enjoy reading the story of a JRPG game, and in my opinion whether it's of a suitable length or not depends on:

* whether the story is compelling, as that influences whether I would like to know more details,

* whether the pace of the story is appropriate, e.g. whether an event happens or ends too abruptly, or whether an event drags on for too long unnecessarily.

Turning to another point: Will the game advance the text/dialogue automatically instead of requiring the player to click to advance it? As a non-native English user, I hope the text won't fly past too quickly before I finish reading it.

Just in case there isn't any click-to-advance text mechanism in the game, I hope there'll be some text speed options or a way to read dialogue history, much like what was done in MARDEK.

Congratulations on getting your new PC! Hope it'll suit your needs and reduce some of your frustrations with the old one :)

The length of a story/scene is linked to its dialogue, especially in the current case where most of the story is told through dialogue.

I think for the players who don't like reading dialogue, there's nothing that can be done except providing them with a "skip dialogue" option.

I enjoy reading the story of a JRPG game, and in my opinion whether it's of a suitable length or not depends on:

* whether the story is compelling, as that influences whether I would like to know more details,

* whether the pace of the story is appropriate, e.g. whether an event happens or ends too abruptly, or whether an event drags on for too long unnecessarily.

Turning to another point: Will the game advance the text/dialogue automatically instead of requiring the player to click to advance it? As a non-native English user, I hope the text won't fly past too quickly before I finish reading it.

Just in case there isn't any click-to-advance text mechanism in the game, I hope there'll be some text speed options or a way to read dialogue history, much like what was done in MARDEK.

Congratulations on getting your new PC! Hope it'll suit your needs and reduce some of your frustrations with the old one :)

Tama_Yoshi82~3Y

The bit about learned helplessness, or just general pessimism about the ability to "change things", is relatable. I've talked to a lot of people who feel this way (not necessarily about the Ukraine situation, but about whatever political matter relevant at the time). It's an odd dynamic, because firstly helplessness and inaction are obviously not mindsets to nurture if you want to make "the people" more involved. On the other, you don't want to push people who don't have the mental energy to get involved. And then there's this whole question of what it does to have hope, whether it's good or bad, sets you up for failure, or instead gives you something to hang on to (hope is notably different from having the ability to change things). My feeling is that hope is generally good, as long as it's "grounded," but "grounded" is tricky, since different people will fill in the details differently.

I don't consider myself someone with the energy, or personality, to "get involved", unless you include "the conversation" as a part of getting involved. That I can definitely take part in. My girlfriend is vegan, and she involved me in a protest to shut down slaughterhouses locally. Nothing massive, but it was something. I don't think I chanted anything, even though the protestors were; it just felt like something other people do, but not me. It was odd.

Overall, my experience with my girlfriend's vegan group is overwhelmingly positive, though, because it means I can see people who share interests, and have "a conversation" with them (it wasn't during the protest, in case you were wondering). What's great about politics is that given enough depth, it becomes fairly all encompassing, and you can start talking about most things, including stuff like emotional intelligence, ostracization, introverts and the difficulty for socially excluded men to integrate. Most feminists, vegans, person-of-color's rights activists, etc. I've seen were generally in agreement about these kinds of stuff; there's an underlying idea that having empathy for one group increases your odds of having empathy for others (except for those who seem to act out an aggressive empathy out of a traumatic reaction, or something; how could I, a white cis-het man, have anything to say about anything?!?!).

I'm not sure this is insightful. My experience is that the sense of community that arises from certain political matters is quite strong. Communities are good at "grounding" yourself, better than random reddits or content creators. It's difficult to ground yourself on a new and ongoing conflict (esp. the Ukrainian conflict, which is a kind of a mess in terms of signaling) if you only ever read up on it; reading a post or blog written by someone is quite different from seeing them expressing themselves in a live format (or irl). I like discord at least for that reason. Or maybe it's because I'm a fast typer (it gives an edge).

God there are a lot of parentheses in this. It's difficult not to be scattershot since this encompasses so many things. Another reason why I prefer live conversations. The conversation would've driven the topic. The topic would have been shifty, but at least it would not have been my fault entirely. OH WELL. It doesn't help that the complexity of these conversations imply that a meaningful disconnect will have happened by the first paragraph, whereas I'm down here writing a fifth. It must be hard writing large blog posts about your emotional state to people you don't even know... O_o I'm struggling now and I at least know who I'm writing to (without being pedantic about the definition of "know" here -- ANOTHER PARENTHESIS).

I don't consider myself someone with the energy, or personality, to "get involved", unless you include "the conversation" as a part of getting involved. That I can definitely take part in. My girlfriend is vegan, and she involved me in a protest to shut down slaughterhouses locally. Nothing massive, but it was something. I don't think I chanted anything, even though the protestors were; it just felt like something other people do, but not me. It was odd.

Overall, my experience with my girlfriend's vegan group is overwhelmingly positive, though, because it means I can see people who share interests, and have "a conversation" with them (it wasn't during the protest, in case you were wondering). What's great about politics is that given enough depth, it becomes fairly all encompassing, and you can start talking about most things, including stuff like emotional intelligence, ostracization, introverts and the difficulty for socially excluded men to integrate. Most feminists, vegans, person-of-color's rights activists, etc. I've seen were generally in agreement about these kinds of stuff; there's an underlying idea that having empathy for one group increases your odds of having empathy for others (except for those who seem to act out an aggressive empathy out of a traumatic reaction, or something; how could I, a white cis-het man, have anything to say about anything?!?!).

I'm not sure this is insightful. My experience is that the sense of community that arises from certain political matters is quite strong. Communities are good at "grounding" yourself, better than random reddits or content creators. It's difficult to ground yourself on a new and ongoing conflict (esp. the Ukrainian conflict, which is a kind of a mess in terms of signaling) if you only ever read up on it; reading a post or blog written by someone is quite different from seeing them expressing themselves in a live format (or irl). I like discord at least for that reason. Or maybe it's because I'm a fast typer (it gives an edge).

God there are a lot of parentheses in this. It's difficult not to be scattershot since this encompasses so many things. Another reason why I prefer live conversations. The conversation would've driven the topic. The topic would have been shifty, but at least it would not have been my fault entirely. OH WELL. It doesn't help that the complexity of these conversations imply that a meaningful disconnect will have happened by the first paragraph, whereas I'm down here writing a fifth. It must be hard writing large blog posts about your emotional state to people you don't even know... O_o I'm struggling now and I at least know who I'm writing to (without being pedantic about the definition of "know" here -- ANOTHER PARENTHESIS).

kasheeste2133~3Y

Dialogue boxes? It kindof just depends on the game. (disclaimer: I was an old MUD player so hearing people cry about reading entertains me)
To me Mardek was absolutely perfect; Long enough to actually build a story but not so drawn out that you'd stop and make a sandwich midway through. Perhaps its the being young at the time but the "first draft" aspect never bothered me in the slightest... so long as it is well written, punctuated correctly and not filled with typos or spelling errors then I consider it to be an artistic choice.
Currently, I'm slowly making my way through Disco Elysian which I will say is a surprisingly good game. (Don't know if I'd recommend for you; rather dark and introspective) That being said, the game is 90%+ reading (top notch voice acting also helps) and doesn't feel burdensome. Meanwhile, certain games even two sentences of dialogue is excessive since it doesn't contribute anything and in fact distracts from the gameplay.
Additionally, keep it on point. Tyrant comes to mind (yes, I know I'll probably be lynched by the isometric crowd for criticizing it) which was a good game but to mean at least it was prevented from becoming a great game by its excessive dialogue on tangential topics. "Marmaduke is a dog. Dog's are furry. Fur is used to make fishing lures, Fishing lures can be used to catch big fish. Speaking of big fish lets crap out some multipage story about this big fish nobody cares about for the sake of padding playtime and adding 'content' even though nobody in this game cares about some fictional big fish that they wont encounter because this is a game about serving a tyrant and no we're not talking about Ishmael who also had a fetish for big fish particularly of the white whale variety. Blah blah blah, segue back to the game." I understand they're trying to create depth of world and immersion but there comes a boing where I can't be bothered remember my real life neighbor's name so I'm certainly not going to remember the uncle of some random character in a game I've been playing for a couple hours.
Either way, here I am ranting about other folks ranting... as always I trust you'll make it work. Just do what you've always done, one foot in front of the other.

Dialogue boxes? It kindof just depends  on the game. (disclaimer: I was an old MUD player so hearing people cry about reading entertains me) 
To me Mardek was absolutely perfect; Long enough to actually build a story but not so drawn out that you'd stop and make a sandwich midway through. Perhaps its the being young at the time but the "first draft" aspect never bothered me in the slightest... so long as it is well written, punctuated correctly and not filled with typos or spelling errors then I consider it to be an artistic choice. 
Currently, I'm slowly making my way through Disco Elysian which I will say is a surprisingly good game. (Don't know if I'd recommend for you; rather dark and introspective) That being said, the game is 90%+ reading (top notch voice acting also helps) and doesn't feel burdensome. Meanwhile, certain games even two sentences of dialogue is excessive since it doesn't contribute anything and in fact distracts from the gameplay. 
Additionally, keep it on point. Tyrant comes to mind (yes, I know I'll probably be lynched by the isometric crowd for criticizing it) which was a good game but to mean at least it was prevented from becoming a great game by its excessive dialogue on tangential topics. "Marmaduke is a dog. Dog's are furry. Fur is used to make fishing lures, Fishing lures can be used to catch big fish. Speaking of big fish lets crap out some multipage story about this big fish nobody cares about for the sake of padding playtime and adding 'content' even though nobody in this game cares about some fictional big fish that they wont encounter because this is a game about serving a tyrant and no we're not talking about Ishmael who also had a fetish for big fish particularly of the white whale variety. Blah blah blah, segue back to the game." I understand they're trying to create depth of world and immersion but there comes a boing where I can't be bothered remember my real life neighbor's name so I'm certainly not going to remember the uncle of some random character in a game I've been playing for a couple hours. 
Either way, here I am ranting about other folks ranting... as always I trust you'll make it work. Just do what you've always done, one foot in front of the other.

purplerabbits148~3Y

For length of dialouge, it all depends on what you are doing with each sceen that determines the length. For example if you are imparting information and that information develops the characters in interesting ways, then length is fine. If the dialouge is only there to fill out space or to reiterate already present information, then the less the better.

I don't mind reading in games, I came realize that I rather prefer story over gameplay when I played RPG Shooter: Starwish. I never played a game where where I wish there was a "gameplay skip" button instead of a dialouge skip button.

In regards to a needy dog, I can only give my own observation on my own dog. I notice that my dog shows less needy behaviors the longer her walk is. Seems the more tired she is the less attention she seeks. My cousin did "place" training with her very needy dauchsand and everytime she needed to do something for an extened period of time, she would roll out a very specific mat that the dog would lie/sit/sleep there until she is done. Maybe this paragraph could help with managing your needy dog's behavior?

I don't mind reading in games, I came realize that I rather prefer story over gameplay when I played RPG Shooter: Starwish. I never played a game where where I wish there was a "gameplay skip" button instead of a dialouge skip button.

In regards to a needy dog, I can only give my own observation on my own dog. I notice that my dog shows less needy behaviors the longer her walk is. Seems the more tired she is the less attention she seeks. My cousin did "place" training with her very needy dauchsand and everytime she needed to do something for an extened period of time, she would roll out a very specific mat that the dog would lie/sit/sleep there until she is done. Maybe this paragraph could help with managing your needy dog's behavior?

hmmplushlore23~3Y

You good?

Tobias 1115~3Y

Huh?

hmmplushlore23~3Y

nevermind,ignore this dumb comment