10 Reasons Video Games Are The Hardest Thing To Write
10. Hours Of Chatter
Chatter, known more generally as incidental dialogue, is the stuff you hear from minor characters as youre pelting around Liberty City or checking out a passing Asari in Mass Effect. Its pretty much crucial in any game where you can wander around at your leisure, because theres something really creepy about seeing dozens of passers-by tromping along in an oppressive silence, but writers like to take advantage of chatter to help flesh out the game world. Chatter can expand on plot details that are too complicated or unwieldy for a cinematic, bring some humour to the game and add depth to minor characters. Unfortunately, dialogue like this tends to be dreamt up without a full appreciation of everything that can go wrong once you drop these characters into the game, and just how much additional work its going to introduce. Can you attack or kill these characters? If so, theyll not only need screams and pleas for mercy, youll also have to pen an alternative to the witty banter youd scripted because one half of your comedy duo is currently trapped under a Porsche. Did the game introduce choice of gender? Every line with a male pronoun now needs a female equivalent. You cant say good evening if the game has variable times of day, and you cant talk about a particular landmark if the character can crop up anywhere. Oh, and youll need at least five variations of each line so that the player doesnt hear the same dialogue over and over. As the writer, youll need to serve up hundreds of carefully-neutered pieces of chatter, trying to avoid repetition but knowing you cant risk saying anything specific. Youll write way more chatter than any other type of dialogue, but youll be proud of practically none of it.
