game design [Discussion] Efficiently Expressing Language and Thoughts Without Text. Possible?

[Nesh108]

Hello,

I am designing a game and I am currently thinking of how to convey emotions, meaning, goals, intent and purpose.

I find text to be the easy and lazy choice when it comes to make the user understand something.

Is it possible to tell a compelling story, convey the emotions of the protagonist as well as of the other NPCs without the use of any in-game text? If so, what are some good examples and some bad ones in your opinion?

[samid737]

 

 

I think digimon world (PSX) has a nice way of expressing the (main character,NPC's and digimons) emotions and thoughts. In the game your digimon interacts with you via a thought cloud. The entire status information of your digimon is displayed via one thought cloud/bubble:

 and even this one...

This isn't any human interaction, but its kind of a nice way to display information efficiently. You just attach a cloud to every character in your game (In Phaser --> character.addChild(cloud)). Then consider which emotions/expressions will commonly be used during interaction, collect suitable emoticons/symbols for them (-->collect ∞  many photoshop shapes)  and implement A system that displays every possible feeling/expression etc via one cloud/bubble of thought . 
During cutscenes they sometimes reuse the default animations of digimons(happy, angry/grumpy, battle cries/attacks, tired, sleeping, fainting) throughout cutscenes instead of using text displays. I can't really find an example on youtube, but you might notice it sometimes in the longplays .

 

[mattstyles]

I see the thought bubble stuff used a lot and for a long time (sims, rimworld, theme park...), whilst it is more succinct (a symbol rather than several letter symbols making up a world) you've introduced the symbol grounding problem i.e. users have to learn and understand the symbols and whilst its fairly easy to understand a couple of ZZZ's for sleeping, how do you differentiate between `sleepy`, `sleeping` and `searching for a place to sleep`? You might introduce colours, which compounds the learning process, or slightly different symbols which introduces more learning and increases the potential for misreading the symbols. Plus, despite it looking more succinct its no different from using text (and in some ways more problematic).

On 31/07/2017 at 0:40 PM, Nesh108 said:

Is it possible to tell a compelling story, convey the emotions of the protagonist as well as of the other NPCs without the use of any in-game text?

Tricky, how do you understand someone else's emotion in real life without speaking to them? Some people are very bad at this, but its by watching what they do, subtle facial expressions, body language, movements, a skill honed over generations of evolution where non-verbal communication is beneficial.

To mimic this you'd have to greatly evolve both the graphics and the animations of your characters and even then there are at least a couple of problems:

* Its time consuming to watch and pay attention to someone, probably too time consuming for most game situations

* In real life reading emotions of others is often done incorrectly, whilst this could be a fun game mechanic it's probably too frustrating.

So, yeah, I probably haven't been too helpful as I don't have any decent solution, but I think it's a really interesting thing to discuss.

[samid737]

@mattstylesmisreading/understanding  and learning are some issues when using this. I was often unable to progress, because it ook me a long time to figure out the meaning of some symbols (three water drops --> tired...).

Then again it was the japanese version of the game and no googling  ...

[mattstyles]

@samid737 yeah I had the same thing with Rimworld, think you can hover over the pawns thought bubbles for a longer text description (or click them and see their mood modifiers, which are what the thought bubbles correspond to) which is a fairly non-intrusive way of teaching the player about the symbols used, would have been tough in Japanese though

 

[mattstyles]

Actually, the whole language thing potentially makes that symbol solution even more problematic as symbols which might make sense in Europe and North America might make no sense in East Asia and vice versa

[Nesh108]

Very happy to see this topic finally firing up

@samid737: Yeah, I remember that game fondly, I had completely forgotten that it made use of those "emoticlouds". Those are similar to how I mentally imagined a textless game to be.
@mattstyles: I see your point of having to recreate a language in order to avoid using text. I am definitely not against developing such a language, especially with the understanding that it too might need to be somewhat localized.
Also, sounds could also be used to support the visual cues: for example, some grunting noises could also convey the personality/state of a character.

The idea behind my interest in pursuing a mainly textless storytelling is that I believe most games do not require text, similarly to how I believe many scenes in movies don't require words, just good visual storytelling.

To expand on this: a way that I noticed was promising but, in my opinion, iterated poorly was Hyper Light Drifter:

 

Basically using actual intricate panels to tell one's story. While that is wonderful for stories it would fall short, in my opinion, if it were to be used for emergencies or day-to-day communication (e.g. give me an apple, I am starving!). Though, I find it an interesting way to "zoom" into that specific character for getting a better look, understanding their needs and wants (they look thirsty, sad or hurt).

So, here are some personal takeaways:

- Even with the use of textless/icon communication (audio and graphics are allowed), they might need to be localized for certain audiences (can't rely too much on audio as some players might be deaf or playing without sounds).
- Some ideas might be harder to convey than other: showing a character being sad could be easy but making him tell you his life story might be tougher.
- Using panels or "zoom-in" might help with the task when the character's surroundings, body language or looks are the goal of that interaction. Same applies for characters who want to share stories of some sort (à la Hyper Light Drifter).

So, are there any other examples of emotions conveyed with simple, textless means? I'd love to see them

[samid737]

@Nesh108 That game looks amazing! (story behind it) .... The digimon world example was the only idea  I could think of, but if something catches my attention I will definitely share it...

[Nesh108]

Yeah, the style is quite nicely done, it's just lacking other things (for me). But it's great to have examples of games exploring a different narrative style and receiving praises.