User blog:Dessertmonkeyjk/Construct 2 - Adaptive Dialouge

I decided to focus my efforts elsewhere for now on mapping locations based on climate and logical proximity based on portal types and long distance transports. I literally am playing though Spyro 2: Season of Ice to verify some location climates and culture relations because of it. I still can't bring myself to believe that they let it become so unorganize that they had to abandon it... I think.

Anyway, welcome to Construct #2. This time I talk about the optional feature, Adaptive Dialouge. Like before, I'll explain its potenial role, what mechanics utilize it, and why it is important.

Role
So what exactly is this "Adaptive" dialouge feature thingamajig? It is what it sounds like. The dialouge adapts to how you and your partners are playing the game and changes the Playable Characters and Non-Playable Character's dialouge accordingly. Since co-op is much more dynamic, I wanted a way to have NPCs to react accordingly as well as extend it to PCs.

It is as of writing this article unknown what the percise use of this feature is but one thing is certian. As long as the control scheme remains as it is, the majority of dialouge is driven by player action, not player dialouge choice. That alone probably confused a bunch of you but then again you don't really play a platformer brawler to chat to alot of people. There's also the fact that this can get very complex very quickly if not handled carefully.

Let me give you a few examples.
 * 1) Player 1 comes close to friendly NPC looking for help. NPC shouts at Player 1 to get their attention. Player 1 can A. Walk away which the NPC will take note of or B. Walk to NPC and start chatting with them.
 * 2) Player 1 is engaged in a conversation with an NPC. NPC acknoledges Player 1's presences and calls them by PC name. Player 2 comes into proximity of Player 1 and NPC. Player 2's PC acknowledges Player 1's PC. NPC acknowledges Player 2's PC. Conversation continues with both Player 1 and Player 2 participating.
 * 3) Player 1 and Player 2 are traveling together. Player 1's PC starts a conversation with Player 2's PC. Conversation involves Player 1's past actions with an NPC. Player 1's PC responds depending on how much quest info they asked from mentioned NPC. Personality dictate results.
 * 4) Player 1 is engaged in a fight while Player 2 is able to watch the spectical unhindered. Player 1's PC takes notice of Player 2's PC and asks for help. Player 2 decides not to move which then provokes their PC response as "No.".
 * 5) Player 1 is attempting to solve an obstacle. Player 1's PC starts pondering on solutions after some time (hint feature). Player 2 comes in and solves it in 2 minutes causing a response from Player 1's PC.

Now I'm still wondering what the limits will be and how all dialouge is planned out in advance. From the current Quest Design setup, each quest will have an associated set of dialouge for both NPCs and PCs that are possible to get involved unless obstruted by an Ability Bottleneck. This also allows dynamic character development by how the PCs interact with each other and gradually unveil background information or just plain old chatting while traveling together.

Associated Mechanics
Since this can be treated as an optional feature, only the following influencing mechanics are involved
 * Co-op
 * Quests
 * Control Scheme

Why was this chosen
I think it's safe to say that many people love Valve games for how respectful they are to the player's intelligence and narrative flow. This feature was born out of the latter and was taken to the next level. Unlike Half-Life, the levels in are designed to be open-ended which means conversations can occur anywhere. This also allows character development while your playing instead of doing it in a "box" and during reasonable conditions.

It is basically a new formula of interactive narrative that merges story and gameplay in a new way that doesn't require to sacrifice either. However, due to the complex nature of interactive narrative some restrictions need to apply in its first iteration such as not allowing exensive change to the ending of the story and not all situations covered.

Conclusion
So that's that for Adaptive Dialouge. I think I'll look into some classic Combat... handled in a simple yet complex way hand in hand to simple platformer elegance.

Now pardon me as I work my way through Celestial Plains... see ya when I'm able.