Directing Scenes With Too Many (or Too Few) Characters

[Jackkel Dragon]

I keep ending up stumped on this problem, so I've decided I'll ask to see if anyone else has ideas or suggestions. The situation: sometimes, I'll have scenes in my games where there are more characters in the scene than can fit on the screen. When some characters talk more than others, this isn't too big of a problem, because the quiet characters can be pushed aside until they are relevant again. But sometimes I'll have scenes where three or more characters have roughly the same amount of dialogue, but there isn't enough room for the characters in question.

To give an attempt at a visual representation:

A {B C}
{A B C} D E

So far I've been trying to make ad-hoc solutions while implementing the art for these scenes, but it can sometimes make the process stressful because I'm not sure if I'm doing so in a way that makes sense for me and the player. I also considered having the background be on a separate layer and just moving the layer with character portraits to simulate a panning camera, but then sometimes important characters might be out-of-frame due to the relative positioning if I try to maintain the standing locations within the scene.

Conversely, I've also had a few worries about a smaller but similar issue: scenes with only one or two characters on-screen, and little to no movement. I've been trying to get around this in one of my projects by including "close up" shots and making heavy use of the different pose art I have for the characters, but sometimes neither of those are an option. This results in a scene where it's mostly just the faces of the characters changing as the dialogue continues, and I wonder if that's off-putting.

So that's something I've been dealing with again lately. Does anyone have any advice that might help with these problems?

[JenivereDomino]

I'd advise playing through some games that you enjoy that have scenes with a lot of characters. Many successful and popular games do a lot of transitioning to have the speaker(s) on screen when they're talking in a group conversation setting, and mainly only use changes in pose and expression when it actually fits the mood/tone of the conversation.

While your sprites are important, you may find your players are paying more attention to the conversation, especially if it is a group conversation with more lines and people to keep track of, rather than being picky about how your sprites are reacting.

Another option can be to use smaller images at the top corners of the screen for brief moments where one character says just a couple of lines before it returns to someone else (or several others) who are doing the majority of the talking for the scene.

I think it is probably very easy to get stuck over-analysing sprites, transitions, and who you have where during a long scene. Put something together and then see how it looks when in action and how you feel about it, then ideally have someone else look over it for you too and see how they feel about how it plays out, because you might be worrying about things that someone playing the game won't really notice or think about.

Good luck and I hope you find something that work for your scenes.

[Chronocide]

So that's something I've been dealing with again lately. Does anyone have any advice that might help with these problems?

Not really a programming solution, but I'd look into ways to manipulate the story that would allow the optimal number of characters for your medium (Ren'Py) to be conversing at the same time.

Some games I've seen do something where the characters only speak on topics where the topic fits their specialization. Then just shape each conversation so that only X number of specialization topics are mentioned.

Or rather than specialization, it could be a personality thing. Like a character that won't/can't speak to women, is afraid of certain creatures, and so forth.

Another I've seen is where the main character does basically all of the talking, but in certain scenes, you'll get a choice to let another character speak instead of you. Then each conversation is designed basically one speaker in player party.

Beyond that, perhaps create reasons that certain characters can't attend a given conversation. "I'll wait outside" sort of things.

You could also do something where certain characters are attending without really being present, such as with "I see through your eyes" spells or a cell phone skype.

[RicharDann]

I don't think having characters speaking off-screen is a bad thing. I agree that player's focus is more likely to be on the dialogue that in the camera
and sprites. That's not to say you shouldn't care about the sprites and the camera, as it can be a nice touch to animate it as long as its consistant
with your storytelling.

In my game I don't use much camera movement and just have my character sprites slide in and out of screen as I see fit, the most characters I have
on screen at one time is four and only those that actively participate, replacing them as the conversation flows.

I were to use the camera approach, I'd probably try to follow the general behavior in the real world. In a room with many people, I won't necessarily be turning my head over and over every time somebody says something, unless I'm really interested in the conversation. If there is someone leading the conversation I'll probably focus on them, only shifting my view when a point caughts my interest or when I want to ask someone a question or respond to someone's comment.

You can play with that if your game is seen from your MC's point of view, aka we see the game world throught their eyes so we focus on what they
focus on. If not, I guess it depends on how important you think each character's statement is.

[cheonbyeol]

Just tiny tidbits of thoughts.

I have seen side images used for characters that are speaking off screen/off view, unless you have the MC as the constant side image.

And as a player, I've never been bothered with having too few characters on screen, so as Jenivere said, maybe that's not something you need to worry about even.