Tone and Voice

[Flack]

I'm struggling a little bit with the game I'm currently working on. Without giving too much away, the game takes place in multiple different ... uh, locations. That's not the right word; like, different takes on reality. Ugh, I'm doing a bad job explaining this. Say, for example, you had a story where a guy turns into a giant monster ... so the first part of the story is actually kind of a serious story, and then when you turn into a monster obviously that's a ridiculous thing that wouldn't be taken seriously.

I guess the part I'm having trouble with is, I don't really enjoy writing "seriously", especially in IF. My favorite part is writing all the little sarcastic bits and jabs and hiding jokes within the text, so I'm getting bored with writing the first "scene" (a series of locations) which is more serious in nature.

[Roody_Yogurt]

Sorry, this post was written so close to the other one in the other thread that I never realized there was a new thread in this base!

Anyhow, yeah, I am very intimidated by the prospect of trying to write seriously. I've said that I'll probably use my real name if I ever write a serious game, but I'm not sure we'll see the day.

I guess one perk of a serious tone is that it might work even better without a strong narrative voice; instead of providing a mopy, miserable voice that the player wants to rebel against, you can just try to convey the same feeling through descriptions and things and let the player come to that conclusion himself.

[Flack]

I guess what I was having trouble with more than anything was switching tone midstream. I was fighting it a bit at first but in the end I think I've incorporated it into an actual plot device. By writing the first part a little "dry" I think it makes the first twist more surprising when it hits. And the dry part is only (at least right now) four rooms, so hopefully people won't give up on the game before the plot really kicks in.