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Interview Robert Kurvitz talks about writing Disco Elysium on GameSpot Audio Logs

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Like he says in the video, the Shadowrun games got this right too. I think most games just felt safer sticking to the IE/Fallout formula.
 

FeelTheRads

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skill-based combat

Ah, you're one of those, huh?

Tell me, what is the difference mechanically between the supposed combat in DE and any other dialogue or interaction that happens in the game? Is there any? No? Then DE does not have combat. Period.
 

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skill-based combat

Ah, you're one of those, huh?

Tell me, what is the difference mechanically between the supposed combat in DE and any other dialogue or interaction that happens in the game? Is there any? No? Then DE does not have combat. Period.
It doesn't matter what I think. The point is that adding more of these interactions will not satisfy combatfags.
 

jebsmoker

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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
Extremely interesting interview. I think that it pretty clearly demonstrates the attention to detail that exists in excellent craftsmanship. The UI design is something that a player will be looking at for an entire game, but rarely do we hear about it - probably because it's usually not very glamorous. However, Disco Elysium makes it a centerpiece without it being obnoxious or in the way, which adds a lot of potential value to every experience the player will have. Just my opinion, of course!

Thanks Infinitron for your continued great work!

I felt that after ten years of hearing that the indies would provide an alternative to the mass market pap, this is an example of a game that would never be published by big software cartels and in fact is better than anything they have ever produced. The game is genuinely innovative and unique. Even games like Grimoire are piggybacked on the greatness that came before but in this game you see a glimpse of how much better games could be if they were produced by real craftspeople who were looking to exceed their predecessors. Many have promised as much but this game delivers. Any RPG of the year 2019 list that doesn't have this in the top 3 is run by SJW sellouts.

cleve actually likes an extremely polarizing game? my day has been fucking made.

it's time to go another sape thrashing tour
 

Deleted Member 22431

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the game is unironically based on twitter.

'nuff said
It’s not enough to remove traditional combat systems. No. Now they have to replace traditional dialogue boxes for something like twitter. The decline in cRPGs is metastasizing and it won’t stop.
 
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Roguey

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Like he says in the video, the Shadowrun games got this right too. I think most games just felt safer sticking to the IE/Fallout formula.

I find right-justified text more annoying to read than centered text and the Shadowrun games aren't particularly enjoyable to read when the characters dump a lot of text on you (e.g. Hong Kong).

That small window to the upper-left in the NWNs was also lousy.
 

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I find right-justified text more annoying to read than centered text and the Shadowrun games aren't particularly enjoyable to read when the characters dump a lot of text on you (e.g. Hong Kong). That small window to the upper-left in the NWNs was also lousy.

Whichever way you look at it, using twitter as inspiration to design your game is a bad idea
It is good for people who enjoy twitter and have a short attention span, but it is bad for us. In the interview he mentioned he wanted the dialogue to feel like social media. Think about that for a moment. That probably explains why some lines are so cringey and stupid.
 
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Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I'm not seeing the connection between "the dialogue window has been made narrower than usual" and "this game is inspired by Twitter".
 

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When he says it's inspired by Twitter, he's referring not just to the UI design but also to the writing itself - short segments, punchy, addictive to read. You can think that's bad but evidently it worked.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So he does. I suppose I disagree with this then:
Whichever way you look at it, using twitter as inspiration to design your game is a bad idea
The narrower text window is brilliant and it's ridiculous that it hasn't been done ages ago. It should be the new standard. Another thing that uses this format besides Twitter is books. Did books get it wrong?
 

Haba

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Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
People with autistic-spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties in comprehension of figurative language, and tend to give literal interpretation to ambiguous syntactic expressions. (Happé, 1993, 1995; Kerbel and Grunwell, 1998; Rapin and Dunn, 2003; Adachi et al., 2004; Rundblad and Annaz, 2010)

Get diagnosed today!
 

Roguey

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The narrower text window is brilliant and it's ridiculous that it hasn't been done ages ago. It should be the new standard. Another thing that uses this format besides Twitter is books. Did books get it wrong?

nwnp124_1.jpg

81-1-1346711967.jpg


I found it a chore to read, and figured most others did also, hence why all the devs went back to bottom-center.

BG2's writing guidelines got it right.

  1. Each of the dialogue nodes (dialogue piece) spoken by an NPC should be limited to two lines. Only in VERY RARE circumstances are more than two used.
  2. All character responses should be one line when they appear in the game. There should be no reason for them to be longer than this.

Fallout also got it right with its narrow vertical window, which prevents long paragraphs.

koKYD49.png


Stygian also took its cues from Fallout; the only big problem is that the font doesn't scale with resolution, making it difficult to read for a number of people.

qIrsBqn.jpg


Of course Chris Avellone was nigh-universally praised for breaking all the readability rules, so I guess if people like what they're reading, they don't care.

IlKPnw0.jpg
 

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Sometimes people praise things they love and opinions they agree with, however, in some circumstance the opinions they agree with contradicts the things they love.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Roguey Not sure what to tell you. I've always found it more comfortable to read narrower paragraphs. There's a reason why newspapers print in columns rather than edge-to-edge.
This:

1lfkpk.png


Is a lot more comfortable than this:

2swjtp.png


It's not particularly egregious in your Fallout/PST examples because of the low screen resolution (it's like if the right half of the Disco Elysium screen was all that could fit on the monitor), but in newer games you need another solution than edge-to-edge dialogue windows, and the sidebar format is the best I've seen. Anything as narrow as DE's window would if centered either obscure the middle of the game window, i. e. the spot where everything is happening, or it'd fit practically no text. Agree to disagree, I guess.

As for the writing guidelines in your post, that's just anti-wall of text sentiment, which is a bit funny when you bring it to a newspost about this:
When he says it's inspired by Twitter, he's referring not just to the UI design but also to the writing itself - short segments, punchy, addictive to read.
 

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The narrower text window is brilliant and it's ridiculous that it hasn't been done ages ago.
You just praising this feature because it sounds innovative. As Roguey so eloquently showed, it isn't. It has been done ages ago and never worked as intended.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
If you watch the video, it's not just about the dialogue space being narrow but also about its position, with the center of focus on the lower right corner of the screen.
 

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