Campaign: Confusion over who is 'talking'?

[Tenebrous]

I think the text in the campaign could do with a little work, as it's currently confusing as to 'who' is talking, and who they are talking to.

Example:

But first I need to destroy the small biters nest in the mid north.

OK great, so that's "me", the player character, talking.

But then...

You can throw grenades with splash damage. Take the grenade to cursor and press __CONTROL__build__ where you want to throw the grenade.

You? Who is this "you" who's doing the throwing? I thought it was "me" before!

Suggestion: Perhaps the person 'talking' should not be the player, but a separate person altogether. Usually this would be in the form of a digital assistant, perhaps something that's part of your suit.

[Drury]

First it's the player character talking to himself.

Then it is the player character directly addressing the player controlling him.

[Tenebrous]

That kinda breaks the 4th wall a little bit in my opinion.

I think it would be better if the player character talking was different from tutorial hints.

e.g.
"I need to kill those biters! I could use some grenades."

followed by, in a different style/font/whatever
"Position your cursor and click XX to throw a grenade."

[MF-]

That kinda breaks the 4th wall a little bit in my opinion.

I think it would be better if the player character talking was different from tutorial hints.

e.g.
"I need to kill those biters! I could use some grenades."

followed by, in a different style/font/whatever
"Position your cursor and click XX to throw a grenade."

Sounds like a good idea. Knowing who is talking before reading the line is somehow more comfortable
than having to figure it out during reading and then possibly re-reading to actually understand.

Perhaps even in a box of a different shape / colour?
I think I would favour white background for character's thoughts.

[Drury]

Alternatively have the text adressing the player in a GUI window/notice sort of thing rather than speech bubble, to make it clear the game itself is talking to you, not the character.

Overall this is rather nitpicky, considering the whole campaign is subject to change.

[Tenebrous]

Yeah I agree, it's very nitpicky. However I sat with a couple of new players for a while and this was one thing they mentioned.

Anyway! I wasn't aware the whole campaign was due to change, so that's exciting anyway

[slpwnd]

The "who is talking" is admittedly a problem in the campaign. The idea was:

- small text in the lower left is "the character thoughts", things like Yay I did it or I should do this and this. They are not crucial for further progress.
- text in the orange window that stops the game is the "game talking to the player - the guy sitting behind the monitor". This is fairly important and should not be ignored, therefore it requires a tab to proceed.
- and to make things even more complicated there is the objective window ...

One possibility is that "the character thoughts" would go completely or be replaced by a narrator or by small "bubbles of text" coming from the character. But I think that stopping the game every time for this would be too much. UI is difficult

This is not really a bug per se, rather lack of a feature. So I am moving this to general discussion.

[Elfface]

The character-thoughts in the lower left would be pretty interesting, maybe combined with some sort of pager or other alert system. Kind of like the news headlines in other management games.

A mixture of useful things (E.g. 'Ore deposit depleted' or 'Power station under attack'), interesting tidbits (E.g. 'You have produced 125,624 Iron Plates this game') and completely useless jokes/flavour text (E.g. 'Revolutionary Orange Science Pack revealed to be hoax. "It was OJ all along." says Lab-bot 4218.')

[MF-]

sounds like introducing a 4th type of a message
(player thoughts, tutorial message, game-warning-message, mission objective message)

[Tenebrous]

UI is difficult

It totally is!

One possibility is that "the character thoughts" would go completely...

I think I'd agree with that. If you want players to identify with the character then I wouldn't be telling them what they are thinking