This document discusses dialogue in video games. It identifies three categories of dialogue: ambient, interactive, and cutscenes. Ambient dialogue includes sounds and short generic or situation-specific lines. Interactive dialogue allows player choice through dialog trees, which are branching structures. Quest-giving dialogue is used to introduce quests through an opening hook, details from NPCs, and player responses that accept or refuse the quest.

1. DIALOGUE IN GAMES
Video Games and Interactive Fiction

2. PURPOSES OF DIALOGUE
➤ Characterization
➤ Worldbuilding
➤ Pacing
➤ Humor
➤ Progression

3. THREE CATEGORIES OF DIALOGUE
➤ Ambient Dialogue
➤ Talking that happens
during gameplay
➤ Interactive Dialogue
➤ Game system in which
player selects dialogue
➤ Cutscenes
➤ Dialogue that occurs
outside of gameplay; no
player choice

4. TYPES OF AMBIENT DIALOGUE
➤ Onomatopes/Grunts (sounds
with no words)
➤ Barks/Soundsets (frequent in
combat)
➤ Generic Ambients (short lines
referring to something)
➤ Customized Ambients (short
lines that; situation specific)
➤ Generic Banter (lines of
dialogue between characters)
➤ Customized Banter

5. INTERACTIVE DIALOGUE
➤ Different ways to write
interactive dialogue
➤ Often referred to as scripted
conversations and/or dialog
trees
➤ Dialog trees: branching data
structure; each node a place
where the conversation may
branch
➤ Conditional branches and
exchanges

6. QUEST-GIVING DIALOGUE
➤ Opening hook: attract the player to enter dialogue
➤ First NPC Hub: quest-giver explains the problem
➤ Further NPC Hubs: details of the quest are explained
➤ Player Hubs: player asks questions; accepts or refuses quest
➤ Final NPC Hub: immediate goal is spelled out, sending the
player forward
➤ Success Dialogue (NPC): if player completes quest
➤ Failure Dialogue (NPC): if player fails or refuses quest

7. DIALOG
TREE

8. QUEST-GIVING DIALOGUE
➤ Common genre of game writing; often featured in portfolios
of game writers
➤ Usually spoken by NPC: introduces new objective, search
area, and enemies/obstacles
➤ Often divided into two parts: 1) quick context and
introduction to the quest; 2) fleshes out the context and urges
player to complete the quest
➤ Success or failure: what the NPC says when the player
successfully completes the quest, fails it, or refuses it