dynamic dialog games

[plasticflesh]

This is something I've always obsessed and dreamt about. Ideally there could be a game or genre about dialog and social management or engineering, that is dynamic and replayable, to a rougue-like extent even, and also ideally multiplayer.

The sword fighting in Monkey Island was my first really enjoyable experience in this sort of game play, where it was more variable than dialog trees, which are basically static menu mazes.

This flash game arguement champion is an interesting example of a sort of mechanics focused dialog game.

"Sissyfight 2000" was pretty of satisfying, especially as a multiplayer experience. Although actually very violent.

I was excited about "Little Text People" for these reasons, but them being aquired by Second Life frustrates me, the Little Text People game itself will probably never see the light of day.

I actually enjoy japanese dating sims like 'true love' for this aspect. Transylvania Girls is a quick simple example of that genre. The hilarity of this genre is that instead of exploiting the violence like the majority of games, they exploit the sex taboo.

Obviously I should try Walking Dead. I guess the weird line I draw in the sand is Walking Dead seems to be choose-your-own-adventure narrative branching based, dialog tree menu mazes, and not sort of a 'full dynamic system'. That's really just taking for granted an excellent adventure game that I ought to dive into, and also talking with my butt on my shoulders as I've only played the demo for the first episode.

It's for these reasons I'm trying out Crusader Kings 2, as it seems to focus mainly on relationship management, in what seems to be a very dynamic. Still climbing the learning curve on that.

That's some of my rambling thoughts on this topic.

[youmeyou]

Dynamic conversation systems while super interesting still seem rather limited by technology. There's a really interesting article about human thought processes and computer processes being (currently) incompatible and the way that shapes the software we use and thusly our daily lives: http://nplusonemag.c...ty-of-computers which seems related. While there can be attempts to get around the current limitations of technology, computers cannot simulate intelligence to the extent that a human could suspend disbelief and feel like they weren't talking to a program. Or see the author behind said program in the case of video games.

Another example of a game that attempts to simulate and make a challenge out of human conversation is Façade, a game in which you visit a couple for a dinner party and can interface with their AI by typing something in a text field. The AI then attempts to parse what you are saying and apply it to the context of the dinner party. It's pretty rudimentary, but when it works, it feels like a plausible exercise in pushing the boundaries of socially acceptable behavior.

Monkey Island swordfighting isn't actually that dynamic. Each insult has a counter-insult and it's simply a matter of playing the mini-game enough times to have all possible combinations available to use.

Argument Champion is also pretty interesting but it tends to feel like a puzzle game as opposed to a conversation. It breaks language down into interconnected synonyms to the point that the words lose meaning. Which is interesting in an of itself but wouldn't work in a game where you actually were having someone trying to author a story.

Which is kind of why I linked the article. Dynamics and scripted storytelling are at this point, not really compatible. You can program algorithms that resemble organic occurrences, but they won't seem plausible as stories. Walking Dead is engaging because it hooks you into a (actually, several) well told story. It also manages really well to hide the way events unfold based on your decisions. So it feels less like a 'Choose your own adventure' book than Bioware games or Bethesda games do. The point isn't solely about interacting with AI in Walking dead. The writing, supported by a dialogue and events system, is engendering an emotional response in you as you play through the story. If that makes sense.

[Merus]

I disagree with the assertion that we even need sophisticated natural language AI to have a game mostly about dialog and social interplay. Most of our games about guns don't model the internal mechanisms of guns; so long as you're getting output that acts convincing enough, it's enough to build gameplay on.

The best example here is Cleverbot, which is not a particularly sophisticated AI system but is significantly more convincing than most genuine AIs. All Cleverbot does is parrot back replies it's received at some point, with weightings based on what's just been said. This is why Cleverbot can keep up a duet for long enough that it can surprise you by subverting it.

Different approaches with limitations that are acceptable in games will come along eventually. For instance, procedural map generation is lightyears better now than it used to be.

[youmeyou]

I don't doubt that it will improve, but I don't think there is an example yet of believable dynamic dialogue that also tells an interesting authored story. Everything I see at this point is more at the level of exercise or puzzle as opposed to being a narrative driven game.

Guns are far easier to simulate than language. You can simplify down the mechanics of a gun and build convincing gameplay out of it. But when you simplify the mechanics of speech you get Fable 2's fart noises. Which are a great start, but not even close to the level of nuance needed to establish verisimilitude.

[plasticflesh]

One time I went on the Dwarf Fortress forums imploring something similar be integrated into that game. That was a bit fool hardy. Ofcourse it's all already in there, in terms of the dwarfs having personalities. I just wanted more, more!

Oh man, Façade, I remember that game now. It very quickly becomes the snarky side of AI, but I think that's just the parlor drama setting speaking, the hell is people sort of thing. Now that I've finally bootcamped I should give it a go. I forget, is its parser more elaborate than Starship Titanic? I don't expect a lot out of text parsers, unless there's actually a menu of terms to choose from, a transparent syntax glossary, dynamic to the conversation at hand. Then I could imagine this being the 'stream of thought' the player's character is thinking during the opponents' dialog, that the player picks phrases from and strings together a new thought to bounce back. Sort of like the audience thoughts in Arguement Champion, but used to create thoughts.

I don't expect AI to be at any high cognitive state for these games to work. I wouldn't mind them being gamey or puzzley as long as the mechanics are more or less founded in social and emotional millieues. I mean if it's just the social wheel from Fable 2, but iterated on a dozen more times, I believe it'd be worth while. If there were no violence in Fable 2, only a way more evolved social wheel and that incredible realestate mini game, I could deal with that.

Or a Sex in the City GTA 4 mod where all you do is go on dates, and buy shoes and dresses to modify your personality. It'd need the LA Noire interogation system for dinner chats and pillow talk. Sure it sounds like a horrible girl game like Cooking Mamma, but I have a lot of faith in the 'sit com' game being a genre yet to find it's place.

If this Pokemon parody of the 2008 election I would play the crap out of it. I suppose a mod of RPG maker could achieve something similar. Ofcourse I'd rather have the "conversation combat" be more tactical than jrpg battle screen based, this way a room of people could be part of the conversation and interject more clearly.

There could be a nethack clone where you ascend levels in an office building, schmoozing with the employees and middle managers at every stage to eventually gain entry to the CEO's office and pitch your product, or deliver your blackmail, whatever your agenda may be.

Or a re-imagining of Maniac Mansion. You choose to start as a few characters who have different personality modifiers, charismatic but dumb Dave, intellectual but awkward Bernard, etc. Most item based puzzles are tossed out the window in favor of interacting with other personalities in the mansion. They gain entry by telephoning a fake pizza delivery, or posing as Jahova's Witnesses, or as cable repair. Once inside they schmooze Weird Ed while distracting Dr Fred. Eventually Weird Ed is completely on their side, The gang then coerces Dr Fred and family to release Sandy. Ofcourse every play through is random, but with certain victory flags established, so the next time Dr Fred will be too involved with Skyping with the Aliens to concern himself with the teenagers breaking in, so ofcourse the teenagers hack the skype in alien disguises, and convince Fred that way to release Sandy. It's a thought.

Anywho, games like Hotline Miami remind me why this lower priority, visceral carnage is much more immediately gratifying. Also the challenge is that 'mobs' in a social game are expected to work together more often, and are expected to continue functioning after their 'failure', as opposed to just lying on the floor and disappearing. That's a lot of work.

I want to believe.

[vimes]

Dialog-driven puzzle is one of the thing that Telltale explored successfully very early: I still remember the poem puzzle in The Great Cow Race and, if I remember correctly, The Last Resort¹ featured a lot conversation puzzles which didn't really involve any props - the player simply went through the maze of dialog to try and bring the character to a certain 'state'.

Those weren't procedurally generated, but they did have a fluidity and a breadth of option (or the illusion of) that made them the next best thing.

Sadly though, these sort attempts can rarely be promoted to systems that could be used as the backbone of a whole game: Discworld 2 had a puzzle with a medium that spoke her answers to your future questions before you'd ask them, and the resulting puzzle was a Jeopardy puzzle... it was great, but except if you root that characteristic in the lead, it can't be used across the whole game. And if it did, it would probably be gimmicky.

In terms of final result, I think the closest thing to procedural discussion are timed dialogs with the 'Silence' choice. In my opinion, they capture perfectly the fact that having a conversation with people you are competing with² is rarely mundane: both the choice of answer and the timing shape and cement the interlocutor perception of you; and in competing situations, that impression can rarely be easily reversed.

This paradigm is mainly used like so in branching but constrained experiences such as The Walking Dead and I expect the more open games would still leave some room for safe experimentation; but I could see an RPG or GTA-like shouldering such dialog system to drive the dynamic of the player's relationship with secondary characters instead of scripting them (say, Niko and his cousin)

I think there are still ways to make dialog in Video games evolve. My take is that the next big thing is to make dialog concurrent to other mode of interaction, and use that to make dialog more rich: get closer, sit down, stand up, use an object ... and it changes your interlocutor's mindset; 'colour' the way you deliver the lines or even changes what you can say. Delivering 'What did you do?' while sitting down next to the person, or after breaking a vase, is a different statement. It's probably a nightmare in terms of asset but I think it might be worth it.

¹my favorite pre-TWD Telltale game and GotY 2009

² in the sense that their objectives are orthogonal to yours or they distrust your position. This can range from, 'I want to steal your money' to 'I want you to reveal what you think of X or Y'. See everything in Facade and TWD.

[youmeyou]

You know, there's a lot of hate for Heavy Rain but I believe they took the dialogue driven adventure format into some very interesting places. The whole silence as an option and being forced to make a decision before a certain period of time elapsed was used very effectively in that game. Not to mention, dealing with characters who were keeping things from you and having to conversationally 'battle' NPCs in order to move the story forward. TWD is taking this ball even further IMO. (and i'll have to check out those earlier Telltale games you mentioned, vimes)

I think what makes these two games exemplary in terms of dialogue is that they do manage to illicit many of the same sensations in the player that a violent action game might. In Hotline, you've got to think super fast; you've got to combine strategy with gut instinct. I'd argue the same goes for HR and TWD. And those are the kinds of dialogue driven adventures that appeal the most to me. I enjoy games that manage to get the adrenaline pumping.

So maybe that's where you and I differ on this particular question, plasticflesh.

I don't expect AI to be at any high cognitive state for these games to work. I wouldn't mind them being gamey or puzzley as long as the mechanics are more or less founded in social and emotional millieues. I mean if it's just the social wheel from Fable 2, but iterated on a dozen more times, I believe it'd be worth while. If there were no violence in Fable 2, only a way more evolved social wheel and that incredible realestate mini game, I could deal with that.

I think experiencing a dialogue as puzzle removes the urgency, the emotion, and the agency. Ultimately all games and most interesting interactive things are presenting a problem/puzzle to be solved but I prefer to become absorbed and immersed into the world the game's designer has constructed. In order for that to happen, the artificiality of the world must be masked. Opening the curtains and revealing the machinery is a valid path for a game to take, but I feel that makes immersion impossible. Now when I approach something like Fable, I'm substituting communication for puzzle solving. Fart returns happy unless character likes muscle flex then muscle flex returns gift. It's interesting that the game makes the logic so visible, but I'd rather play a game like Walking Dead where for example you're given the option to lie or be honest without knowing how the NPC you're interacting with will react and if they'll believe you or not. Both games have their hierarchies and branching trees, but if the branches are hidden, how much ultimately does it matter that they exist?

[vimes]

I was going to follow up with a post about Procedural Writing in general, but it turned huge, so I decided to give it its own article on my recently revived blog.

Short version: procedural storytelling is important, but we suck at traditional writing, so we should improve that first while writers old & new are getting used to the idea of relinquishing controls on details in order to focus on shaping the space of narrative opportunities instead. Oompf.

[plasticflesh]

Tons of great stuff here for that will take a while to digest. Reassessing it all it appears I need to just embrace the dialog tree and general narrative tree.

[eot]

I don't doubt that it will improve, but I don't think there is an example yet of believable dynamic dialogue that also tells an interesting authored story. Everything I see at this point is more at the level of exercise or puzzle as opposed to being a narrative driven game.

Guns are far easier to simulate than language. You can simplify down the mechanics of a gun and build convincing gameplay out of it. But when you simplify the mechanics of speech you get Fable 2's fart noises. Which are a great start, but not even close to the level of nuance needed to establish verisimilitude.

I think you could simulate language, it just comes down to which language you pick. Simulating an English speaker would of course be very challenging, if not impossible, but I remember the game Tibia having Orc NPCs you could only interact with by typing out words and simple sentences in their made up Orc language. It was very primitive in that game, but I could easily see it being expanded to a more complex system. The reason it works is because in an entirely new language you don't prioritze grammar, proper phrasing etc. It is much like trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak your language in real life. In those situations you resort to more direct and primitive communication, something that's a lot easier to simulate. It's something I've been meaning to try out for a long time but I never get around to it.

[darthbator]

I don't think we're the industry that gets to crack this particular nut. Conversation is simply to "broad" in scope and parallel in nature to be technically feasible anytime soon IMO (from both a programming as well as execution PoV). Even simple games are often doing a lot more lifting then most other pieces of software. Also a game needs to drive at being entertaining. It would be a magic miracle for get something like this to actually work at all. Much less to get it functioning in service of some kind of actual enjoyable game mechanic.

I guess it comes down to what you would really consider "dynamic". On it's surface we already have lots of games like this, however the breadth of choice is severly constrained. To get the effect we're talking about I think the breadth of possibility needs to be expanded significantly in order to give it the ability to continually surprise the player.

Really I think people who are doing it best at the moment are doing a good job disguising their limited dynamic nature. I'm really engauged by dialog and choice in the walking dead. I think one of the things that has enhanced that is that I turned off all the tool tip hints. I feel like the game is now hiding from me the moments of actual choice (in most cases). This will fool the user into thinking MANY more of their choices are actually creating dynamic forks inside the story/application then they actually are.

EDIT: I don't know why I forgot this but I think the coolest example of "dynamic dialog" is Bastion. The dialog is context dependent on character action. I think that hooking into things like this make it easier to build these sort of dialog systems then hooking them into a kind of "call<->response" format. The latter IMO actually so closely mirrors conversation that the limited dialog choices and responses (that are easy to hear repeated) immediately destroy the illusion. However the Bastion system does an amazing job of typing the dialog specifically to a relevant action and then does a good job of making sure you don't trigger it continually exposing the "script nature" of the dialog.

[plasticflesh]

Just to reiterate my specific personal desires on this topic. I have no expectations of hi-fidelity simulations of thought and speech, I have no expectations of the game providing cogent narratives. Of course any steps in those directions would be fantastic, but I do feel both are secondary to simple replayable mechanics based on dialog and social interactions.

What I want is something aracadey and replayable, where the primary mechanics are characters socially interacting with each other. Thus describing the game becomes "I used my characters wits against the others" as opposed to "I used my characters weapons against the others."

This differs from traditional adventure game in that the focus is replay-ability at the cost of authored narrative.

I have no compunction with it being a fart twelve times to make guy happy game, that would be fantastic.

[darthbator]

The only way I could see to do something like that is to abstract the conversation system. In order to create replayability you still need the essential ingredient in my post above, the ability to surprise the player. You would need to IMO abstract the conversation system into something emulative of a conversation (yes I am hiding a minigame prescription behind a wall of big words). I don't really see a way of accomplishing something like that where you use such concretely defined symbols (words, language etc).