Baldur's gate II: Shadows of Amn without dialogue

brus

1. How would you conceptualize BG2 without any written dialogue whatsoever but following known narrative ?
   
2. How to present the motivation of the player (to follow the footsteps of Imoen) not asking or discussing what are the intentions of Irenicus ?
   
3. How would you recreate party banter in non-verbal way?
   
4. How to figure out what is the quest about from quest-giver in a non-verbal way?
   

I'm really interested in these topics.

ThacoBell

That would be exceedingly difficult in the current engine, if not impossible.

Kamigoroshi

1. Boring
2. Body language?
3. Close-in zooming for viewing the NPC's grimaces?
4. Updating my Journal. This is a nonverbal action which takes up to 20 phases ingame, depending on the character's Intelligence and readable handwritings.

megamike15

i'd not play the game.

CrevsDaak

I'd recommend a game easier to approach on this subject. BG, Ps:T, they aren't going to work without dialogue, because they're games built around dialogue.

Not sure about IwD, I must admit it would be very funny with cutscenes and people explaining things to you with handrawn signs (I only played half of the first big Dungeon in case anyone's wondering).

elminster

1. A lot more pointing, gestering, and (when communication fails) punching.

Kamigoroshi

On a side note there exists something similar yet quite contrasting from the OP's theme of questions, which I find rather interesting personally: computer games for blind gamers.

Basically if for example Baldur's Gate were to be recreated as such a game, it would have next to none visuals the way they do now. All of its dialogues, texts, journal entries, the menu structure, battle log, encounters, and even equipment or misc item descriptions would be voiced and be exclusively accessed by the keyboard. Meaning no mouse at all, amongst other things.

Well, games the size and depths of Baldur's Gate would probably require even more tweaking than the things I've listed above. But I'd be more than willing to play that just for the experience of it.

brus

I didn't know there were games from blind people.

This no-dialogue design would give the player more freedom for personal interpretation.
Also, environment art would need to tell some story to replace the lack of dialogue.
The more I think about it, the more complex is to build something like this.

Imagine every party member is Boo. Let's say their names are Boo, Booo,Boooo,Booooo and Boooooo.
One would need to understand squeaking language but there will be more chance for misinterpretation.

The main problem would be how to motivate player character to get going somewhere. Because, you know, he would get bored not talking to anyone.

Also, how would he romance?

Dee

You'd need a lot more in the way of contextual information within the environment. Blood stains on the floor, for instance, would need to more clearly lead to a certain former ally's body, and probably a cutscene where that ally's lover stands in silent grief before the group moves on.

Without dialogue, and in the current engine, cutscenes become the vehicle for moving the plot forward: choreographed dances that show you exactly what you need in order to understand the movement of what's happened.

You'd have to decide if you want those high-emotion scenes to remain; if you do, then you'd want to make sure that those scenes aren't surrounded by combat. You want the player to have the space to fully explore their surroundings, take in every detail, before they realize the horror of what just happened.

I can see it being really compelling. It would take a lot of work to do it right, though.

FinneousPJ

The Souls borne games mostly use non-dialogue storytelling with environments and item placement and descriptions. Of course the descriptions are not nonverbal. But is doable and I prefer this in games.

Fardragon

Loom was a point-and-click adventure that did something of the sort.

TStael

Not easily.

It could be an audio book narrated by Brian Bloom, aka Varric of Dragon Age - but generally RPG games are designed for some degree of gamer interaction.