Posted April 24, 2023 by pedrorns
#dialogue #game design #politics #narrative #visual novel
Hi there, friends and foes of democracy!!
The next version of Socratic Democracy is going to be a true (though humble) visual novel, and that requires dialogues.
I have been in love with the idea of making these dialogues and have written a few some months ago. At the same time, I have been dreading the risk that adding dialogues may make the game slower and boring for most players.
But there is nowhere to escape. Dialogues are a requirement for this game. So, what should be done?
Benefits, risks and costs of dialogues
Benefits of adding dialogues in the game.
Risks of adding dialogues in the game
Strategies to implement dialogues.
Dialogue as a UI for political campaigns
In modern political life, campaigns involve politicians producing discourses of all kinds to other parties, voters, media etc., who then react, complain, ask for clarification. Politicians then answer, and the cycle goes on.
In healthy democracies, dialogues make the position of participants clearer over time. Not only does one learn the political positions of others in this process, but also refine their own.
Somehow, the prototype completely skipped dialogues. In it, Leonidas simply selects his campaign promises by clicking buttons in a menu. Currently, there are only 6 options available, which is not enough to make the game as interesting as it should be; it also doesn't do justice to the source text. However, adding more options will make this menu look tired, with just too many buttons on screen at the same time.
What I am thinking now is that dialogues can solve this issue by increasing the number of options available without increasing the number of options shown at any one time. Instead of pressing one or two choices out of X options, Leonidas could be in a dialogue with the people making initially vague promises of broad policies. Upon been questioned by voters to clarify the specifics, Leonidas could then select the exact policy in a menu with few suboptions of the vague promises made before. It would look somewhat like this:
As can be inferred, the actual number of promises available to Leonidas is large. There are two promises been made, one for a public policy and another regarding public revenues. Each of these promises is made by selecting a vague option among 3 available and then selecting a detailed promise among 3 options. Thus, there are 9 options for each promise, and a total of 18 options. If I increase the number of options shown at each stage from 3 to 4, the total number of options grows exponentially to 32.
Besides, at any one time the player is only choosing among 3 (or maybe 4) options. There is no overload. And as the dialogue has a natural progression, it flows.
In hindsight, this is obvious: Campaigns are dialogues. But somehow, I didn’t think about it until this weekend. I swear I have a PhD in politics. I don't lack education, just intelligence😊
Make "universe-rich but non-consequential" dialogues optional
Dialogues which provide information about the universe, but without any consequence for the game play, should be made optional. One way to do so is by using characters that only provide information about the context. Like a... tutorial.
Charon is a sophist and mentor of Leonidas. Charon is thus a tutor. I am envisioning that, in the winter seasons of the game, Leonidas could visit Charon at his place, where they would drink wine upon a fireplace and talk about the game universe. There, Leonidas can learn more about the city’s past, what to expect from other characters and social classes, what use there is to a war. But this visit can be made completely optional. A player who is confident to know all there is to know about the game universe can just decide that these dialogue scenes can be skipped.
Use UI to clarify the consequences of any scene (with dialogue or not)
To make this work, the game design and context must make clear which scenes are optional, and which dialogues do not have game consequences. This is doable. For instance, when the player is looking at the overview map and deciding whether or not to visit Charon, hovering this option with his mouse, a message could appear saying:
Charon’s house
Gain knowledge (optional)
While hovering a different place in the map could bring this message:
Poor neighborhood
Gain knowledge and votes (mandatory)
Or:
Public party
Gain votes and happiness (optional)
Of course, the optional/mandatory dichotomy can also be represented by something graphical, so that eventually the player knows before reading what is the case.
The usual stuff
Besides that, I should of course work on all the usual techniques of the craft: make dialogues short, concise, well written, interesting, responsive etc.
Conclusion
Adding dialogues is a requirement to make Socratic Democracy the game it was set out to be. The political theme, the story narrated by Socrates, and the visual novel genre demand the use dialogues not only as a feature, but as the main mechanic of the game. While including dialogues brings risks and costs, good strategies can be employed to minimize these problems.
I have been dreading to think about these issues, but now that I am doing that… it is all very exciting!!!!