Lemma Soft Forums

I wanted to give you all a sample of my script to critique, specifically as far as syntax is concerned (though any advice, even creatively is also welcome of course.)

I am attempting to write in a sort of film noir style first person perspective. The premise is a visual novel with "pauses" in gameplay which are resolved through adventure game sequences...clue collecting and the like. But the one thing I was concerned about, and would love suggestions, is how to handle narration. I want it to read like a novel, but I do not want that to be too confusing to the player.

Anyhow, this is the first meeting between the main protagonist and antagonist of the game.

(MC is Caleb, antagonist is Seth, and I will write it how it would appear in game.)


CALEB
The bastards pushed me to the ground hard, and I nearly blacked out when my head hit the concrete. I had made it backstage alright, but it was at the cost of a bloody nose and a pounding head.

CALEB
I didn't know what to expect at first. I could see a baseball bat and a pair of pliers in my near future by the way those meatheads were staring me down. But they didn't move. Not until he came in.

CALEB
Seth Fremont, age 34. Paralyzed, in a wheel-chair, covered in skin grafts, and made up of ghastly, recycled human parts. An ex-Janitor, put away by yours truly, and left for dead. Even as he rolled up out of the shadows, hunched over and frail, he looked more menacing than I had ever seen him.

SETH
"Well." he began simply, staring me down with one blue eye and one green; a prosthetic used to replace the one my bullet had put away. "I didn't expect to see you around here."

CALEB
I stared up at him from the ground, while one of his thugs grabbed my collar with his filthy meat hook.

THUG
"He came in, demanding to see you. Shot the place up, and snapped poor Charlies neck out front." The thug said, pointing at the carcass they had dragged in after me, it's face covered with my jacket, filled with blood.

SETH
"And what would you like with me exactly, Caleb Lang? What little is left of me that you also feel the need to take away?"

CALEB
"Your life."

CALEB
He shook his head, and stared at the floor. And then he started to laugh. It sounded forced, raspy, and was topped off with a nasty cough.

SETH
"Is that all? Is this jaded cripple a danger in the Fed's eyes?"

CALEB
"They never told me. And I never asked."

SETH
"And you were...satisfied, with that? Did you just feel the need to finish the job? Or does harassing a gimp, and trashing his establishment give you some kind of joy?"

CALEB
I actually thought about that for much longer than I should have.

CALEB
"Maybe a bit of both." I said with a sneer.




----END----

So, the difficulty for me is in the flow. Since I will be representing these characters with images (thus the point of a visual novel!) I don't feel it is necessary to elaborate on everything, but descriptions that are relevant to the plot ITSELF seem to be in order. My only dilemna is in how the story is being presented. Caleb is obviously the narrator here. But as far as dialog boxes are concerned, I had considered a couple of options, which I wanted advice on if possible:

1. Caleb and the narrator appear on screen as two seperate entities. That is, when Caleb is having his inner monologue, or narrating, his name will not be present on the dialog box, and you will just assume it his him. I think that seems reasonable. Whenever he actually speaks, dialog boxes would carry through as usual.

2. There will be no character names in dialog boxes. Whoever is speaking will simply be represented by their picture. The dialog boxes would as such play out more like a novel, with dialog and descriptions reading that way, as opposed to a straight-ahead script.

The problem comes in the line where Seth is speaking, but where Caleb is also narrating. I could obviously omit that altogether, and simply add a seperate dialog box for the narration, but I don't want that to hinder the story. Of course, that is up to me personally to get right since I am the one who is trying to get a message across, but there you go.

So what is the consensus on this? Any proposed direction that I maybe have not considered here?

Thank you!

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If you made the effort to attempt to read this, you have far too much time on your hands. Good job, slacker.

Easy mode: Mouth open in sprite for talking, mouth closed for thinking.

It seems pretty standard to use the format you suggested for the main character's "inner voice," when they are also serving as the narrator (as he is with your script). Instead of showing their name, you show no name and potentially leave off quotes. And/or you use images to the side of the dialogue box showing the character's face. Like suggested, you could make CALEB's mouth move when talking, and not when he's thinking. Or leave off the picture for thoughts.

However, both of your suggestions would probably necessitate tweaking the script slightly. It would probably be a bit confusing for Seth's name or image to show up by the dialogue box when someone else is actually narrating/thinking. Right now your narration and dialogue, while I admittedly think is great, would need to be reformatted a bit to fit the VN style in either case.

For example this:



Could be become something like this without really altering the feel of the dialogue.



It's a tough call, but I think it fits the VN format better.

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Don't Blame Me. I Voted for Vermin Supreme.

That was kind of what I was leaning towards as well. Helps to see it actually be done that way, and I think it still works.

I have been trying to play through some more VN's lately. I hadn't really realized just how long it has been. I used to check them out all the time, but I moved to Linux for a few years, and didn't even really know they existed on that platform.

Thanks a lot for the advice! It is very helpful and reassuring.

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If you made the effort to attempt to read this, you have far too much time on your hands. Good job, slacker.

Most OELVNs are more dialogue heavy than description heavy (I am revisiting some VNs while deciding on how to write for my own game). For this type of story, however, I think your style works beautifully. I am feeling the hardboiled detective / film noir vibe in this script, which I assume is your intent.

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Don't Blame Me. I Voted for Vermin Supreme.

Definitely the intent. Glad to hear it is coming across well. I noticed the dialogue carries many of those types of games, which seems to work well in those situations, but I definitely needed something different to set the mood with this one, I think.

_________________
If you made the effort to attempt to read this, you have far too much time on your hands. Good job, slacker.