from Wintermoor Tactics Club.
Contextual dialogue / character barks.
Written/designed with Kyla Furey.
Every story battle in Wintermoor Tactics Club has contextual dialogue lines that play in response to certain player actions. Similar to barks in a voice-acted game, they mostly convey character and useful information about combat. Many battles have rare conditional lines that reward to player actions, and some even use dialogue as a mechanic. These slides have some varied examples.
For Wintermoor, I wrote many dialogue lines that played contextually during combat to add character or convey information.
In this example, when the player first attacks Chelsea of the Equestrian Club, she demonstrates her club’s us-against-the-world mentality.
Combat dialogue often gives hints about enemies’ AI patterns, such as this line in which the leader of the Young Monarchists club gives his rationale for attacking Colin.
Sometimes we explained gameplay oddities using combat dialogue. In the battle against the Psychic Detectives club, Handel’s only move is to shield others. That means if he’s the last enemy remaining, he’ll just stand there. We wrote a scene that triggers when that happens to explain why.
In a late-game battle, an argument between player character Alicia and her fellow Tactics Club member Colin comes to a head. Colin insists on having a tabletop battle to prove who should be the leader of the club, but Alicia wants to talk through their issues.
In the ensuing conflict, the player must damage Colin’s figurine to provoke him and allow for a brief conversation. After three such conversations, Alicia is able to convince Colin to accept his fear of change and avoid making a disastrous mistake.
In the final chapter, we add a twist to combat by introducing choices to in-battle dialogue. After your opponents’ clubs were defeated and cancelled, they renounced their identities to form a revenge cult. Alicia must choose which Tactics Club member is right to connect with each cultist opponent, to remind them their lives had meaning beyond their clubs. Choosing correctly defeats the enemy, while choosing wrong restores them to full health.
Each enemy’s moves and dialogue give hints as to their true identity. Here, it’s Avery, former leader of the Animal Identification Club, who was basically victimized for being a proto-furry. Their friend Duncan goes on to talk about how Avery’s courage changed his life.