How can I improve my dialog?

[SkepticalTiger]

Right now I am trying to figure out how to stylize the dialog. See the example below. Any suggestions on if there is a better way to do this or is the alt better overall?

IE:

How I have it right now

Code: Select all

centered "General narration"
mc "I am now talking"
"I am now thinking
npc "I am also talking"
"mc here thinking what npc just said"

or:

Code: Select all

"General Narration"
mc ""I am now talking""
mc "I am now thinking"
npc ""I am also talking""
mc "I am still thinking"
npc "I now have a place to think too"

General narration I am still torn between having it centered on the screen or in the dialog box. The VN's I am basing this approach on are Lucy -the eternity she wished for- and DDLC. My visual novel is focused on travel so I will have very vibrant detailed backgrounds for the characters and players to take in.

I will still stylize the dialog box, change the shape, color, etc., but am trying to decide on the best way differentiate between what's being said, inner thoughts and general narration. I thought having the narration in the center of the screen helps the player focus on the BG than stare at the dialog box.

[Mutive]

There's no single best way. I'd argue that consistency is probably more important than style.

For thoughts, you can always put them in italics. Or you can have things coming from say, "Narrator" vs. "MC thoughts" vs. "MC". But I generally don't care that much, as long as I know which one it is.

[MisterHarold]

I'd say the first one if you only have one mc for your game.

[SkepticalTiger]

So I ended up figuring out an alternative after talking to some other devs. I may finalize a different font style for inner monologues w/o double quotes and am using a placeholder font style atm for just that.

Saw on the Ren'Py documentation I can define prefix and subfixes per character so I ended up doing that and have a separate definition for characters who'll have inner monologues.