Opinion on the dialogue ideas.

[Fidchell]

In an Art Asset overview, Aubrey mentioned he wanted to make the dialogue in a way that a speech bubble is displayed above a character with an image that correlates with what they are communicating with another being.

I made this thread so that we can discuss peoples' opinions on this subject.

I personally think that it'd be fine in-game, but in extended cutscenes, it would bother me. Lugaru, in my honest opinion, seems confused with itself concerning what sort of mood it's trying to impose. With the rabbit squeaking and wolf snarling and there being no voiceovers, it's hard for me to be emotionally invested in the characters, since it appears more animalistic. It's also hard for me to be engaged in the dark story with the cartoonish dialogue style. I think Overgrowth should take it a new direction and implement voice acting to the characters in cutscenes. If the speech bubbles were used outside of it, I wouldn't mind.

Regardless the whole thing is an interesting idea, I won't deny that.

What do you guys feel about this?

[Stranger]

I would kind of prefer actual dialogue too. I think a large part of it is that they did have text dialogue in Lugaru, and in the Overgrowth comic, and having their world switch to communication their story to us via pictures seems a little jarring.

Not that communication via pictures can't work. They did that in Machinarium, and it worked fine there. But that gives it particulary type of minimalist style that I'm not certain truly suits the Overgrowth world. I'd like to see the world fleshed out a bit more than I think the picture communication really allows.

It might be functional during gameplay, as you mentioned. I'm thinking as sort of a "quick communication", for times when having full on dialogue would be cumbersome, like brief interactions with enemies or other NPCs. Or as sort of a passive communication to indicate that they're expressing something or trying to tell you something.

It also occurs to me that the picture thing might be used well for inter-species dialogue. Like, say, all the rabbits speak the same language, but maybe the wolves either don't speak their language or consider speaking it beneath them. So perhaps it comes out as mostly growls, with the player character only understanding a bit of it. So I guess what I'm saying is maybe the pictures can illustrate things implied through minimal understanding and body language.

[Korban3]

I'm always very polarized about dialogue in that I usually bid to not have it, even if the game has good voice acting. My band director told our jazz group something during rehearsal one day:
"A good musician knows that the rests are just as important as the notes."
So when I see a game that overuses voiceacting and dialogue, I kind of go *Sigh. Endoface.* because sometimes a facial expression, or a tensing of a muscle group or a sigh is all that's needed to get an emotion, reaction or intent across. Maybe one guy is fidgety, one guys legs are shaking and maybe the third guys is so slammed off his rocker that he can't stand and breathe at the same time. While there's no dialogue when Turner prepares to pummel them, his point is given when he Endofaces them to hell. Dialogue is good, and I really like the method Aubrey has in mind, especially if he uses those rabbit runes occasionally, but I need to emphasize the impact of silence, and body language.

[Stranger]

I do agree on the importance of the use of silence. I think it's not used enough in videogames to be honest, both in regards to dialogue and music. There's been a lot of games that have cringe worthy sequences because they try to over-explain with clumsy exposition dumps. Chalk it up to a lot of video game developers either not being good story tellers or not thinking it's an important area. This actually isn't that common in indie games, though. I guess because they have smaller teams that put a lot of care into what they're making - which certainly describes our Overgrowth team - so there's not much "committee creativity" going on. Music too, like I said; there's been a lot of tension in video games that's been destroyed by the trend towards dynamic music these days. But I'm getting completely off topic now.

What I want to get at is that while I like the idea of a lot of body language to communicate to the player, something we have to keep in perspective is that they are slightly handicapped in this regard. Since the characters are all anthropomorphs that land pretty hard on the animal end of things, they don't have the full range of nonverbal communication that humans do. At least towards humans; but since most of the playerbase will be human, we'll stick with that.

As David pointed out in one of his changelogs (I couldn't tell you the number, but it had something to do with making the character faces move), the wolves are more emotive than the rabbits. With their forward facing binocular eyes, the wolves' faces are much more similar to humans. We can expect this to be repeated with the dogs and cats, though possibly the cats to a slightly lesser degree, with the rats being more like the rabbits. One of the reasons humans get along so well with dogs is that they actually have very similar body language. You don't need to be taught how to read a dog, it comes pretty natural. Wolves would be similar, since it's almost the same species. This is why cats get a reputation as being aloof, because if you aren't used to them, they're harder to read. But they still have pretty readable faces, with the binocular eyes and all.

Rabbits and rats, though. They have the "prey eyes" on the sides of their heads, as well as pupils that aren't clear and distinct like in the canines and felines. Their whole head has a different kind of shape to it, really. So the point is - Turner glaring at someone... what does that look like, exactly? What is the face of an angry rabbit, as compared to scared rabbit, a happy rabbit, or a sad rabbit? Since they have such different faces, and most of us aren't so used to rabbits or rats on a personal level, it's a lot harder to communicated that effectively. The canines and felines will have some difficulty as well, but I think most of us can much more easily recognize when a dog or cat is upset by looking at their faces.

Most body language below the neck shouldn't be as much of a problem. They'll all have digitrade legs, but other than that, their shape is pretty similar. The face is where a lot of that nonverbal language comes from, though. Like I said, I'm all for using body language to communicate to the player, but it might not always be sufficient to ge the point across. It would be interesting to see some animal-like body language implemented to aid in this. Ears folding back or drooping, teeth baring, hair standing up, that sort of thing.

[Korban3]

Yeah, I can't wait to see body language and emotion come into play. I believe David mentioned at one point that he wanted to get something like that in. I may be confused with some other thing though, but it sounds like something David would do: Making modular emotion-body language animation overlays for the current ones. And AI that varies depending on emotional state. And EA thinks the games they publish are next gen.

[Nekros22]

At this point there isn't enough information for me to make any sort of judgment. Dialogue can work if it's spoken or written, it just depends on the type of game. Speech bubbles seem too convenient and casual for a game like Overgrowth.

I don't think voice acting would be appropriate either. The uncanny valley of the pseudo-realistic character models is just too great for them to talk without being considered funny.

Overall, I liked the cinematic quality of the cutscenes in Lugaru. I think with some tweaking a similar style could be achieved in Overgrowth, and I like the ideas in this thread about the animation AI responding to emotional states.

[Stranger]

I would still prefer some level of verbal dialogue of some sort - the impact of silence doesn't have so much impact if you don't have the talking for it punctuate. I'm sort of torn on the idea of voice acting, though. With how polished Overgrowth is already looking, I don't think they can use the Lugaru model of just having subtitles while focusing on characters. It would seem like they just skipped over that one part, it would probably be really weird. I think there needs to be something more to the communication than that. Having them stand there with no mouth movements while subtitles showed up, regardless of body language, seems strange. At one time that would have worked, but like I said, Overgrowth looks too professional to get away with that.

But at the same time, the way voice acting is handled can sometimes make or break a game. Plus, it's almost certainly expensive. This is probably why indie games seem to shy away from it, though there have been some indie games with very good voice acting, like Aquaria or Bastion. However, neither of those had to worry about fitting voices with 3D model anthropomorphic mouth movements. Having a wolf or a rabbit have just talking with their wolf or rabbit mouths, and having a normal voice might be a bit odd.

I'm trying to think of other games that had animal-like characters with detailed, up close 3D models, and voice acting. The only one that comes to mind is Zeno Clash (which, by the way, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is worth looking into if you like Lugaru/Overgrowth), but I'm pretty sure most of the more animal-like characters didn't talk much. I do want to say that what lines they had were fairly heavily filtered - they didn't just sound like someone's normal voice, which could be something to keep in mind. Having an animal-like sound to voices, or at least some sort of consistent style of distortion, would make them seem less like normal human voices, and might be more palletable.

There's also the Magicka style route. For reference, all the dialogue during the gameplay itself (not counting the level-opening intros) in that game had subtitles with gibberish voice acting. Well, gibberish with bits of english and swedish thrown in. Again, though, they didn't have to worry about lip flaps because of the style and perspective of the game. Plus, Magicka is comedic in nature, so they can do silly stuff, since that's the whole point. But the basic premise could be adapted to something more serious in tone - you could have voice acting that didn't actually say anything. Give the idea that the animals are speaking another language, and just subtitle it. Make different languages for the different races. Snarly, growly sounds for dogs/wolves, hissy, meowy sounds for cats... though I actually have no idea what you would make a rabbit or rat sound like. This could also turn out really stupid if done wrong.

You could adjust camera angles in cutscenes so that whoever's talking is never head on, so you don't have to worry as much about the lip flaps seeming to fit. But that's a total cop-out.

There's the possibility of doing the more dialogue-heavy expository sequences out of the game engine. Like using the history channel style floating-still-picture thing with drawn artwork and subtitles. That would eliminate some of the weirdness of having animal faces talking. Though that kind of thing is always a bit of an interruption, and I would generally prefer that the game keep us in the flow of gameplay as much as possible.

[cowfusion]

I love the asian cinema vibe to Overgrowth. I will be content with nothing less than black bands at the top and bottom of the screen and dialogue "subtitles" complete with Sergio Leone closeups. Speaking towards the camera with your back to the villain. Close ups of eyes.

Here's an idea... use Japanese voice actors. If you actually have a detailed story then use subtitles (appropriate for the region). But if the game has minimal dialogue consider NOT using subtitles. Just Japanese speaking rabbits. You will be able to tell a simple storyline from the action. Revenge for slain wife and child, for example... Is there really any need of subtitles? Everyone knows the drill. In Age of Empires, when I played Chinese, I didn't need to know what shenme meant when I clicked on him... I just assumed my Chinese peasants was asking "What?" (She was).

If you gradually introduce phrases you could have players learning Japanese. Use intuitive hotkeys for fun and added gameplay. For example, a battlecry hotkeys for charging at an opponent (doesn't need a combat benefit... it's just fun), or honor. Why sneak up like a cut throat? If that's the type of rabbit you are, then so be it. But some of us rabbits fight with honor and want our opponents to die facing us (and suddenly we have an alignment system...) A Japanese warcry could alert your opponent to your presence. Other voice hotkeys could be for a greeting / request for aid / wary dialogue for talking to NPCs. Not every encounter should be a fight. Given the brutal (and awesome) gameplay of Overgrowth it would be enjoyable to talk your way out of fights occasionally. A display of kindness or bravado on a certain group could produce a different (such as the gift of a weapon) or healing, instead of yet another punch up. And best of all, it could all be in the nonsensical guttural shriekings of those crazy Japanese.

[Endoperez]

Here's an idea... use Japanese voice actors.

That... won't work.

Japan does have lots of professional voice actors, but then, that means they've got accepted rates you have to pay to get voice acting into the game. The bigger problem will be the writing and translation of dialogue.

It HAS to be written, and translated, because without text, the actors can't act. I mean, they could try to ham up the ingredients of a soy sauce into an incredible drama, but then the second guy in the scene speaks, and he's hamming it into a sob story. And even if they could, Japanese people would still buy the game, and then they'd understand whatever it was that the voice actors were saying.

DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? MADE FROM 12% CONCENTRATE, WITH WATER.

*sobsob* But soybeans-sama, how could you do this to salt and various spices-chan?

12% CONCENTRATE! WITH WATER!

[Ragdollmaster]

Oh god Endoperez, I'm in stitches. Few things can make me actually burst out laughing, and that post was one of them

[kehaar]

As David pointed out in one of his changelogs (I couldn't tell you the number, but it had something to do with making the character faces move), the wolves are more emotive than the rabbits. With their forward facing binocular eyes, the wolves' faces are much more similar to humans. We can expect this to be repeated with the dogs and cats, though possibly the cats to a slightly lesser degree, with the rats being more like the rabbits. One of the reasons humans get along so well with dogs is that they actually have very similar body language. You don't need to be taught how to read a dog, it comes pretty natural. Wolves would be similar, since it's almost the same species. This is why cats get a reputation as being aloof, because if you aren't used to them, they're harder to read. But they still have pretty readable faces, with the binocular eyes and all.

Rabbits and rats, though. They have the "prey eyes" on the sides of their heads, as well as pupils that aren't clear and distinct like in the canines and felines. Their whole head has a different kind of shape to it, really. So the point is - Turner glaring at someone... what does that look like, exactly? What is the face of an angry rabbit, as compared to scared rabbit, a happy rabbit, or a sad rabbit? Since they have such different faces, and most of us aren't so used to rabbits or rats on a personal level, it's a lot harder to communicated that effectively. The canines and felines will have some difficulty as well, but I think most of us can much more easily recognize when a dog or cat is upset by looking at their faces.

A friend of mine works as an animator at Pixar, and he says they make a ton of use of the character's eyebrows to convey all kinds of emotions. If you can get a copy of Ratatouille, it has lot of good emotive stuff. They did make the rat's eyes more binocular, but the eye shape moves quite a bit. Remember Wall-e's eye movements?
(really actual binoculars but their movement acted to change the eyebrow line.)

When the movie Avatar came out my friend really liked all the work they did, but he said the rigid eyebrow/nose makeup on the natives really must have made everyone's job harder, and in the end took away some of the realism of the acting.

I know eyebrow movement has got to be way down in the list to work on, but could be a relatively simple addition to get across a wide range of emotions.

For sound, I still like the squeaks and barks with subtitles. For modding purposes and for the Wolfire guys sanity, they need to have maybe 30 sounds per species instead of Lugaru' 10.
John can probably do almost all of them. Maybe some font choices for the subtitles would be nice.

Actual animation beyond head movement in the cutscenes would certainly add to story telling, but it's pretty amazing how much you can tell with the Lugaru style slideshows-plus-head movement, and I'd rather they spend time on all the other gameplay stuff.