The Art of Dialogue

Creating Dialogue Workshop

The Purpose: Engage and Hold Players

Provides emotional and narrative context of gameplay, highly influenced by:

• Game genre

• Intended audience

Creates a distinctive character, making your experience unique among thousands of others

Entertains and directs/hints players

Dialogue Tips

Be Minimalist - Dialogue interrupts gameplay

• Trim it down for a cumulative improvement, but convey critical information

• Add character to your experience without adding too many characters/NPCs

• Avoid overuse of all four responses with Asker behaviors in your experience

Reveal character through language. Let their words define them.

Think in the character’s voice:

• Who am I?

• Why am I talking to the player?

• What is my attitude, vocabulary, and tone?

• How can I make the player engage with me?

Be Clear

• Don’t confuse

• Help players with what they need to know, share it in character

• Succinctly add signposts to dialogue (do not info dump with exposition).Let the hero, the player, drive the action

Be Engaging

• Vary rhythm and structure

• Be consistent, but not repetitive

• Snapshots players can assemble to tell a story

• Every character has at least one identifiable trait

Kill Your Darlings

Players don’t love your writing like you do, so make reading your dialogue worthwhile.

Remove:

• Details that only matter to you

• Exposition

• Jokes that don’t fit the narrative

• Dialogue that doesn’t advance story/action

Interesting, Understandable, Entertaining

Your experience is one of thousands, so make it YOUR Metaverse. Create distinctive dialogue to grab attention fast and make the player care before they move on to the next experience.

Pretend you know nothing and test your experience for these vital characteristics.

Keep Calm and Follow the Process

Write, Read, Get Feedback, Revise