Dialogic interactions in video games

Dialogic interactions in video games

1. Interaction with NPC

Generally, NPC’s goals are to provide the player with an information about the story, allowing story progression and offer help or cause trouble along the way. In earlier games, NPCs usually only had a short monologue message, or a floating text inside a speech bubble, not allowing the player to communicate back. The player can approach the same NPC after some time or after progressing in the story and discover new dialogue options, but never really has any control over the content of conversation. The only action that is possible to control is engaging the conversation or not. A fine example of this non-branching dialogue is the tutorial part of the game Portal 2 (Valve Corporation, 2011), which is not dialogical in the sense of having a discussion with someone, but is instead communication in a very peculiar way. At one moment a personality core, Wheatley, an NPC who also serves as the deuteragonist, asks Chell, the main character controlled by the player, if she is okay. Since Chell does not answer, he continues and the ‘dialogue’ gets an interesting twist:

At this moment, the player is given a hint to answer using the spacebar, which is set for jump by default and the moment the player presses it in order to answer, Wheatley continues:

“Okay, what you’re doing there is jumping. You just, you just jumped. But nevermind, say ‘apple’. ‘Apple’.”

Again, a hint ‘SAY APPLE’ using the spacebar appears, making the player jump one more time. Wheatley reacts: “Okay, you know what, that’s close enough, just hold tight.”

This particular example shows us that even when not having a dialogue, the player still learns how to communicate and how to control the game along the way. In this case it does not matter how much linear the story is or how monologic the speech might be, the player needs to use these new findings to navigate through the surroundings, interacting with Wheatley as well as with other game elements.

1. Branching Dialogues

Another aspect, while speaking about dialogues, is the fact that not every utterance has to be reproduced. Players sometimes choose when and if to react with certain characters, affecting the story further. Nevertheless, choosing whether to encounter a dialogue or not creates a whole new set of possibilities, especially in branching story-related games.

While talking about dialogical interactions with NPCs, it is important to mention talking and dating simulators. These simulators usually present unique and complex branching dialogues and respond accordingly to player’s questions and answers.

A fantastic example is Firewatch (Campo Santo, 2016), a game which came out in February. This indie piece is set in the Wyoming wilderness in 1989, where “the only emotional lifeline is the person on the other side of a handheld radio”. The player assumes the role of Henry, a lone man, who decides to spend his summer as a lookout in Wyoming. His only companion is his boss Delilah, whom he never actually met. The only way they can communicate are radios and the player is given a set of responses whenever Delilah calls. There is also an option to not answer her at all. The player can also call in for certain situations or objects to learn more about them and to initiate dialogue. Let us set a short excerpt:

At this point the player has about fifteen seconds in which he can reply with one of three premade answers:

• 
  You’ve killed three ex-husbands.
  
• 
  You’re rebelling against mom.
  
• 
  Nobody back home can stand you.
  

And the dialogue continues. Since it really does matter which of the answers the player selects, the overall experience might be different, as the relationship with Delilah might stay completely professional or might turn slightly ‘friendlier’, according to the player’s choices. A hint of romance is also possible and can be accomplished by selecting the right dialogue options.

Another interesting type of branching dialogue sets when a player can choose from several manners at the beginning of a conversation. The decisive tone of the argument may then determine if the player obtains crucial information or not. For example, blaming an innocent person while solving a murder case can lead to a situation when the true killer will never be found, because the NPC will get angry with the player and will not engage in dialogue again. The problem connected with complex dialogues is a simple one – the fact that the conversations need to contain a lot of possible information, coupled with the fact that modern video games have fully voiced dialogues leads to longer texts, which means longer pauses between the reactions as the player usually does have unlimited time to answer. This can be very disturbing for the gameplay and overall immersion. Fortunately, game designers came up with a solution to simplify player’s answers – aside from limiting the time a player has to react, they sum up the most important parts of the text into an abridged version and use symbols and pictures to tell the rest. By doing so, players can react more easily, knowing for example that the blue option is good and the red one is bad. These symbols can then provide the full version of the text after being selected. (Ellison, 2008, p.1)

In games, aiming for cinematic quality dialogues, such as Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream, 2005, 2010, 2013), full responses completely eliminated. The game offers only pared down choices, such as “Ask about the gun”, “Change topic” and similar. The character afterwards responds in a full sentence, related to the choice selected. In addition, to ensure that the conversation will be swift and have a natural pace, a time limit is given for each choice so the player has to react quickly. If time runs out, the game will choose an option at random. Mass Effect, mentioned earlier, gives up this time limit for a more elegant solution by providing the player with dialogue options before the NPC finishes speaking, giving the player more time and allowing for a smoother development of the dialogue.

2. Hub-and-Spokes Dialogue

3. Parson-driven

4. Systematic Dialogues

When interacting with another character, two basic choices are available – a positive answer and a negative answer. Choosing the right answers, gestures or attitudes and returning to the same character over and over again during the game rewards the player with increases in the relationship and eventually even gifts, such as permanent health boosts, mana pool upgrades or more members available in the group. These romances, however, are not meant to have any deeper impact in the long term and this type of interaction is neither very immersive nor realistic:

“The transparent nature of Systemic Interactions is the most obvious problem with this method, since the player receives constant reminders of the exact nature and purpose of his interactions, making immersion difficult to achieve.” (Ellison, 2008, p. 4).

The problem is, even though the player establishes a strong relationship or romance, NPC characters tend to be shallow and do not have much character development in particular. Because of the style they are interacted with and their lack of character, the whole conversation gives the impression of artificial substitution, thus making it completely useless in terms of dialogic learning. Another reason for this is the fact that all of the characters with the same model have the same dialogue lines and they often share the same voiceover as well. It may happen however, that the player encounters several different NPCs, which can express personality with their answers, while the character itself stays the same, without evolving.

Systematic interactions are used when the player has to encounter lots of NPCs, some of which might even just fill the game’s world, so it is not empty, making a reasonable and meaningful interaction hard to achieve.

5. Other interactions with Non-Player Characters

Using simplified commands mentioned earlier, such as “flirt”, “dance”, “cook” and such, the characters are showing emotions while interacting with the world, each other and gibberish speech, providing the player with little additional information. However, this unique gibberish solves the problem of innumerable lines, which would repeat themselves in other games with standard speech. Of course, the pattern will start to repeat itself after a while, but it is still a more suitable solution than any other known language, making the repeated conversations less irritating.

There are no scripted story plots in The Sims and the player has complete control over his characters and can make them do nearly everything. Interacting with the characters will either improve or worsen the overall future relationships and interactions with others. If the characters are not regularly interacted with, the will start to deteriorate over time. As such, owing to the direct control of the player, these characters are not to be considered typical NPCs. (Ellison, 2008, p. 5)

Mini-games are further developing the aspects of speech, but they rather offer feedback to a player’s performance than any further insight. They simulate certain aspects of the utterance and allow the player to access unique alternatives and options during conversation. While some mini-games can be part of the conversation, other conversations are made to be one. Again, the simple system is that when the player fails, the characters do something inappropriate and the relationships worsen. On the other hand, if the player is successful, the character eventually succeeds and achieves better reputation. The downside of these mini-games is that when the player is engaged in trying to fulfill the task, it is difficult to pay attention to the text on screen, making it difficult to follow and ruining the immersion somewhat.

Another practice, not completely related to interaction, yet definitely worth mentioning, is The Time Scheduling technique, which provides a significant part of relevance in the context of interactions with NPCs. Normally, while interacting with other characters, the player chooses when to approach them. In some games, however, time management is an important aspect, and the player has to pick NPCs to interact with.

It is important to decide how a given day in the game will be spent. For instance, the player can choose a morning workout or to sleep longer. (Ellison, 2008, p.5). Later that day, options can be to go to the cinema or to visit a café. These choices then affect what characters will be encountered. If this happens, the player then has the ability to engage in a dialogue with them and spend some of the time in their company. Each time the character is visited, it brings new dialogues, or new choices into the current one. Using branching dialogues, the relationship with the player increases. Dialogues in these games are scripted to a certain point, often not shifting the story further until the player manages to achieve maximum level in the relationships.

Indeed, this method can be considered extremely effective, since the player has to choose between the characters, thus creating a deeper, inner meaning of the whole virtual relationship. Players choose to interact with a certain character because it is intriguing or important to them in some way. Often, this happens even before the very start of the dialogue.

The downside of this particular method is that even if the game contains a lot of NPCs, the player will not encounter all of them, at least not in a single play-through, because the game itself does not provide for this possibility. This means a lot more work for developers, but offers different possible play-throughs of the game.

Today, when certain games already play like virtual television sitcoms or dramas, it might only be a matter of time before the game industry discovers an idea for a successful game made completely out of interactions.

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