Thinking about playwriting for improving on game writing

Recently, Extra Credits' OtherDan did an audience choice Design Club stream. I took the chance to show him Ultra Hat Dimension, the first Ludum Dare game I did as part of a team. We made it for Ludum dare 32, and after tying for 24th place of 1500+ entries in the 72-hour Jam, we decided to expand on it, add more content, and release a paid version (coming in the next couple of months). The version he played was the original compo version, and he gave me two pieces of feedback that we hadn't already considered. One is that we should milk the mechanics more, rather than throwing everything at the player at once. The other piece of feedback, the one that I want to focus on today, was that the text could be greatly compressed.

The LD version does indeed have a lot of text. It's in between levels and easily skippable. However, it contains hints about the mechanics. OtherDan pointed out that it's good that the text is skippable for those who want to do so, but that once players start skipping text it's hard to get them to start up again. And of course, once they start skipping text, they'll miss the hints contained therein.

It was at this point that I realized I needed to switch writing brains for Ultra Hat Dimension. I am quite happy with what I wrote, but it's very prose-y. A more dialgue-focused approach will do just fine. And that was when, for the bazillionth time, that I thanked my lucky stars for the acting experience I got growing up. (Thank you, Grandma, for getting me started on that. <3)

The reason theatre has anything to do with this is that a script is almost purely dialogue. There might be some stage directions, but most of the information about the characters and the setting are conveyed to the actors through their lines. The script writer has to pack those lines with information for the actors to draw from, all while making them sound like natural speech. I have very little script writing experience (none professionally), but I have a lot of script reading experience to draw from.

Since I'm currently focusing on adding more levels to Ultra Hat Dimension, I haven't done much with the writing yet, but here's an example of what I mean using the game's intro. The original compo version of the game has the following:

And here's the new version:

It's much shorter, but calling for a toast implies party; calling Bea, our main character, an otherworlder implies that there are multiple worlds; and mentioning the Spluff Kingdom's annual hat design competition introduces the name of the Spluffs, states that they have a kingdom, and implies that they really dig hats since they have a hat design competition every year. It's far more succinct, but contains most of the information I initially spent two paragraphs on.

So if you're making a game that's heavy on story text, perhaps you should read some plays (your local library is sure to have some) and consider how you can imply more and state less.