3D or 2D emphasis?

QA designers trip the text-fantastic every day. As the primary dialogue writer on the project, I hit the quote mark key on my keyboard more frequently than most journalists. Experience has taught us that students who use QA can benefit in a myriad number of ways from the dialogue we write. Reading skills can improve, immersion in the setting cam deepen and overall learning of the concepts can grow when players care about the characters that they get to know through dialogue. In a design I’m working on now, however, I find myself trying to minimize dialogue and focus on 3-D functionality. For this particular project, it feels more authentic and immersive to have players reading almost no dialogue. Instead, have them be nearly exclusively mindful of the consequences of decisions by observing what’s changing in the 3-D space as they make decisions.

Consequentiality is a major part of all of our design work. Often this takes the form of character dialogue changing the way that character reacts to the player. Other times it is a hybrid of changes in the 3-D spaces and dialogue. A great example of this would be the new Plague Unit. Deciding the fate of the town of Ingolstadt changes the town’s inhabitants’ attitudes toward Questers and changes the town itself. By choosing to help the doctor or his creation, Questers either rid the village of darkness, slime and fog or doom it to even worse conditions. These changes are then explored by Questers by talking to characters who are personally impacted by those changes as well as walking around amid those changes. A dark, gloomy, slime-filled village, or a bright, sunny clean village. The choice is in the hands of the Quester.

This new build I’m working on seems to be filling in the missing portion of that spectrum by being mostly in 3-D. In a particular scenario, players will help a troubled teenage girl who is suffering the ill effects of a vicious rumor about her. The player learns that as her friend, they are the only one who can help her. Luckily, they have remarkable talents and abilities that allow them to see just how troubled their friend is. This special ability allows players to literally see their friend’s troubles floating about her head. As they give her advice, those troubles either improve or worsen. This is reflected in the 3-D world immediately upon making a decision. While the player is offering text-based advice to their friend by clicking on options that pop up before them, they are doing most of it in the 3-D space, as opposed to in a 2-D text window as would normally be the case in our, and most, games with dialogue.

*Note: Temporary image only. Will not be used in game.

I feel this helps to make the girl’s problems feel more immediate. It also clearly delineates the possible roads players can take the game down. Instead of two dialogue links on a 2-D page, the choices are in the 3-D space, to either side of your friend. Choose the right and maybe she feels better. The left, maybe worse. Each choice brings a consequence. In this example, I chose the “Right” on the left side of the screen. The game then shows me the consequence of that choice…a Responsibility that comes with using that Right.

*Note: Temporary image only. Will not be used in game.

The consequences of my action don’t need to be read in a 2-D text window. Players who aren’t as adept or as likely to read don’t have to read to know that something has changed. The 3-D world is giving them immediate and obvious feedback. While I am not convinced this is always beneficial in our materials, I think it will work nicely in some.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this issue of 2-D text or 3-D effects?