what's some of the best dialogue systems you've seen and why?
I've been closely studying dialogue and cinematography in video games lately. Try to detach the dialogue system from the dialogue. What's the best? Was it technically multiple systems or just one?
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This wasn't wholly your question but you might like to look into what NOT to do with LA Noire. Originally the game's dialogue options were labeled, "Coax," "Force," and "Lie." You play a 1940's police detective who has to solve crimes, so dialogue naturally comes up when you are interviewing witnesses or interrogating suspects. However, Rockstar as publisher made a shock change late in development where the devs had to change the options to "Truth," "Doubt," and "Lie." These options, however, don't actually quite fit with the actual dialogue of the game. Something I noticed a lot when I played the game was when I selected "Doubt," to theoretically doubt what I thought was an obvious logical error or a half-truth, phelps instead just started screaming at the top of his lungs about executing people. Or other times I'd select "Truth" because the witness wasn't lying but just being cautious with their words. It turns out that option was 'wrong' because I didn't force out the key info I needed.
It wasn't until I learned later on in my playthrough of this fatal publisher error that I instantly became way better at the game. Just had to switch around the words in my mind to what the original devs intended. Later releases of the game had "Truth" and "Doubt" changed to "Good cop" and "bad cop" but both of those also don't really fit too well. Phelps isn't always bad cop when forcing the truth, sometimes he's just yelling because the witness is an asshole.
The reason Lie was never changed is because when you select Lie, you're doubting their version and coming up with evidence to prove the contrary, like in Ace Attorney.
Just a little thing to keep in mind about dialogue options. Even though the words "Coax" and "Force" sound a little... advanced I guess, they still work way better mentally just because they actually describe the options. Truth and Doubt might help you reach a younger or less intelligent audience, but they don't work because they don't actually describe what the options give.
I had no idea about the original labels, that makes Phelps' dialogue make way more sense!
Press [X] to Doubt
Wow, that makes so much sense! I hated that I could never predict the dialogue outcome in that game. Maybe it's time for a revisit?
Ah, I noticed this, I felt the same didn't understand why the truth, doubt system didn't seem to match up with the response.
Still a great game though at the time and I felt it hard to play other immersive games where the character face animation was so poor in comparison
This was a meme for some time, like he’s talking to a little girl and suddenly screaming at her. Didn’t know the labels changed but that the dialog a huge joke.
I'm pretty sure the original was "Accuse" instead of "Lie", and the dialogs also made more sense thinking the response was "Accuse".