Dialogue System

Year 2: Specialism

About

Set in a dystopian future city were crime is rampant, a detective must solve the recent murder of a local doctor, talk and/or interrogate those closest to the victim and choose your words carefully to uncover the truth to this deadly situation.

This was made for my second year of university, I wanted to pursue a project for specialism that would allow me to work on my narrative and dialogue writing whilst still pushing me to improve my skills in using Unreal Engine's blueprints and growing as a developer as a result. I decided that a dialogue system with a branching narrative would be perfect for this. This had been the most complex project I had worked on up to this point so it really forced me to adapt to the challenge in ways I didn't expect

After I finalized the initial design and had my documentation in order, I got straight to work on the dialogue system itself, leaving narrative on the back burner until I had something playable, I started on a prototype that would allow me to test the best method for structuring the conversations.

I designed the level, as it mostly only needs to serve as a hub to talk to the characters it needn't be too complex but placement of the assets that I had acquired from the Epic store did require a fine eye for visuals in order to best utilise the assets in a way that enhances the atmosphere.

I wrote the story, characters and the dialogue for the game, as the main feature is a dialogue system there was obviously a lot more challenge to writing the dialogue the usual as it needed to branch off into multiple paths. so keeping it from getting out of hand was my main priority, as well ensuring all options felt consistent with each other and the NPC's reactions to the player.

Development:

Conceived the project and further refined concept to fully designed state, including documentation.

Level Design

Created initial test level and non-player character (NPC) to prototype base dialogue system.
Created final level block out
Placed assets throughout level using asset packs to improve atmosphere and story
Positioned NPC's in the level
Scripted key parts of the narrative and flow of the level

Visual Scripting

Created functional early dialogue system with dialogue wheel and NPC.
Play tested and iterated to improve system, iron out issues.
Scripted functionality to allow dialogue for multiple NPC's.
Implemented basic UI to ensure game is playable.
Created on screen objective markers to aid in seeking out NPC's.
Hooked-up animations for NPC's and environment pieces.
implemented dialogue and hooked-up conversations to ensure they flow correctly.

Narrative

Plotted the games final story including the murder, whereabouts of each character at the time of the murder and resolution of the story dependent on the player's choice.
Designed seven characters (including player character and victim) in regards to personality, backstory, relationship to other characters/victim, ideology, career/prior crimes, speech pattern, alibi and motive.
wrote branching dialogue for five NPC's using flowcharts.
Iterated upon dialogue to create more natural conversations and give characters distinct personalities.

Samuel J Thorp

Games Design