MA Game Design
Having identified exposed systems and UI feedback as areas to explore, I set to work in two directions: developing feedback around text and UI, and learning how to rig a humanoid 3D model for procedural animation. Text & UI My initial designs for the scenes didn’t change much – I think subconsciously I was already …
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When researching different dialogue engines / narrative scripting languages for this project, I came across three: Fungus, Yarn and Ink. I had already used Ink before as my first step towards understanding scripting last Spring, so I decided to stick with it – learning a new language for the purposes of this project would have …
Continue reading “Critical Play Project: Working with Ink + Unity”
The following case studies of two recent narrative games (Fallout 4 and Disco Elysium) will analyse how their dialogue systems are rendered through their user interfaces (UI). Of particular interest to me are how a player physically interacts with dialogue, how games visually present text, and how they communicate feedback on player choice. Fallout 4 …
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In my research for this project, I identified two key approaches to dialogue systems in games. The first system – the so-called ‘hub’ system – has been widely adopted across game genres. The second – which I’ll call the ‘hatch’ system – has been developed almost as a response to the pervasiveness and rigidness of …
Continue reading “Critical Play Project: Case Study (Dialogue Systems)”
This development log will track and summarise some of the research undertaken during this project. I began this project with the objective of making a philosophically engaged game, specifically connected to language and dialogue. With most narrative-driven games using dialogue systems to simulate acts of speech, I decided that J. L. Austin’s seminal text How …