Dramatic ... pauses

[CRogers]

For my first game, I wrote an entire script and am now sitting down and putting everything in (actually making the game, though all the major text is done).

One of the main problems I've had between the script and the game are issues of pausing. Let me give a narrative example.

John cautiously knocked on the door. “Marty, do you got a sec.”

There was a long pause, Marty knew what was coming. “Sure.

John slowly opened the door. “I have, uhm, something to say.”

Marty swung his chair around, his eyes boring into the younger man. “Yes?”

“I…I ate the last of the marshmallows.”

Marty took a slow, deep breath as he turned his back to John. “You’re dead to me.”

Okay, quite a bit exaggerated, but there is a lot of ways to fill space between dialogue. I can write in narration or use ellipses. If I was making a game with voice actors they could read it the way I envision it being delivered. But with the RPG Maker engine those pauses just kind of disappear.

How I thought I was going to implement this was via the \| and \. commands in text. Except, instead of acting as nice breaks as a character pauses before a dramatic word (or pauses for any reason), it comes off as choppy and frequently like the program has frozen.

Does anyone else have any experience with this? I might just be being overly negative with my design. If not, it won't hard to rework (pauses between characters via wait command seem to work well).

 

[Scythuz]

I'm pretty sure you can use events to create pauses in the flow of a conversation.  I can open rpgmaker right now to check because I'm working but I think there was a "wait" function?

 

[Lars Ulrika]

Indeed, you don't need a script. Just keep your cursor idle in a "show message" box and a help window with all the ways to spice-up messages will appear. Never forget that rpg maker vx ace has MUCH more flexibility without scripts than one would usually suspect.

 

[Housekeeping]

I use the \| command after the ellipsis for short pauses.  For longer pauses, I'll either use a balloon icon with an ellipsis in it or convert the pause into an action of some kind--taking a step and looking out a window, for example.  If you're willing to do a bit of animating, you can have characters play with their hair, brace themselves against walls, etc.

Often when I'm eventing, though, I feel like a grown man staging a play with dolls, so you'll have to live with that psychological burden.

 

[Diretooth]

If I recall correctly, the default pauses in the text editor for on-screen messages are \. \| \!

\. being 1/4 of a second,

\| being one second,

and \! being paused until the player presses a button.

Now, if I were to have voice acting, I'd first write the sentences peppered with the time commands.

For example:

A scene between a grown boy and his long lost father

"So\..\..\.. After all of these years,\. It was you."

"\..\..\.."

"Why did you do it?\| Why did you kill my mother?!"

"I\..\..\.. I had no choice\|.\|.\|."

"No choice?!\. You slaughtered her in front of me and\.\^

"I did it because he would have killed you regardless!"\!

"\|.\|.\|."

In the game, and the preview function for the text editor, the commands will not appear, of course. It is always difficult for voice acting to work like this, because there's a lot of editing to do to make it look right and sound right.

Of course, you could just display the whole text and let them read it without pauses. It's less work, but it can still work.

 

[Pern]

I've had decent success with dramatic...pausing in dialogue just using the various \ commands, wait and [x amount of frames] between words/sentences. I think the [x] requires a script though. I also like to use little animation bubbles with "..." as a pause occasionally. Lots of testing to get the timing right to emphasize the scene/chat but it can come together quite nicely in the end.

 

[wallacethepig]

Some of the best dramatic pauses accompany a black screen.

As it turns out, he...\|

*Fade to black*

He was dead.

This adds drama both through pausing and through essentially hiding the view of the player. However, while it can work in cutscenes, I typically place them before the player sees another map. In other words, don't have text-text on black screen-text, but text-text on black screen-transfer.

A lot of the time, dramatic pauses are best when accompanied by movement on screen; the silence speech bubble is fairly good at accomplishing this (even more so when set to "wait"). A character getting up and moving to a window, outlook or similar "deep gazing/thinking spot" is a good way of using movement as a dramatic pause. Remember, no one wants to just sit there and read text accompanied by faces for 5 minutes, no matter how gripping it is. Scenes become so much better when there is something going on other than talking.

Remember to not overuse dramatic pauses, either – no one wants to wait 5 seconds where nothing happens. I've played games like this and thought the game froze; I would be close to restarting it when I realized it was actually just someone who inserted an absurdly high number into the "wait x frames" command.

Don't forget to playtest, playtest, playtest your scenes! Make sure the timing is just right. You may be sick of that one cutscene, but everything is cool if it flows well. (One way I avert this problem is by inserting absolutely psycho bonkers NPCs into my towns. It helps somehow.) Here are a few other ways you can make your scenes more dramatic:

Rain! Rain makes everything sad and depressing; use this.

Moonlight/Starry skies are great for love confessions.

Darkness is always a fun little treat. Use sparingly outside of horror games.

Piano music! That's a rather broad term. Use music that "fits" your scene. Remember: music is one of the most influential things you can have in your game. It can make an otherwise normal spot downright creepy, and a creepy spot seem fairly normal (but if the music is TOO happy, some players might be even more creeped out...).

Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck!

-Wallace

 

[Housekeeping]

Here are a few other ways you can make your scenes more dramatic:Rain! Rain makes everything sad and depressing; use this.

Moonlight/Starry skies are great for love confessions.

I liked a lot of your advice, but I'd strike these two statements.  You want to set the right scene, but don't rely on cliches to do it.

 

[CRogers]

Just to be clear to a few of the comments; I have been using the default commands (not looking for scripting) and they do what they are supposed to do, it's just the result that comes out when playing the game is rather awful (which, as Housekeeping observed, might just be a psychological burden from testing my own product).

Thanks to pern and wallacethepig for mentions the speech bubbles; I knew they were there but they had slipped my mind as an option.