Lemma Soft Forums

I've been implementing the following for my project. The MC is on the right side, while NPCs are shown in the center.
Whenever he speaks or is spoken to, his portrait and background will slide from off-screen to the right side. Otherwise he'll slide back off-screen while other characters speak. He's slightly scaled down compared to the NPCs. The background also changes depending on the scene.

There are a few reasons why I thought to take this approach.
1. To distinguish the MC from everyone else. To make it clear who the player is controlling.
2. To allow him to be seen and emote like everyone else.
My aim with the design is to make it look like he's facing towards the NPCs.

I'd like to know what you think. Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Could the implementation be better? Does it look like what I'm trying to convey? Does it look silly/distracting? Or whatever. lol
I appreciate any feedback. Thank you.

I think it's a good idea, in the sense that the MC popping out of the side gives a better visual cue that they're speaking rather than just a portrait change next to the dialog box.

In terms of getting the look of two characters talking to each other, having two sprites facing each other as they talk is the most literal way to portraying this. This would either need a 3/4 or side profile shot, though there have been instances where characters are talking to each other and facing forwards.

Granted, it's difficult to say if the implementation is good or not without actually seeing it in action :/

I'll quote myself from one of your other threads where you where showing this.

....while I applaud you doing something different with the MC side-portrait, it feels kind of 'off' to me. You've seemingly gone to some trouble to make sure your NPCs are all the correct height in relation to each other, and then you have your MC shoved in from the side with a completely different scale. I assume you did this to make sure they fit in the wider bottom part of the triangle cut-away, right?

Why haven't you gone the traditional route of placing the MC next to NPCs? I assume you are trying to emulate some kind of first-person view but have MC expressions at the same time. Instead, I get this weird feeling of standing in the middle of a conversation - like I've picked the most awkward spot to stand and have to keep looking forwards and backwards to keep with the different speakers.

I think the main point is that the player has to place themselves spatially in the scene (at least in their own mind) and this kind of flip-flops that spatial location back and forth.

I'm going to try a different approach to this. Instead of making side-portraits, I'll have the MC appear in the same plane as the NPCs.