First look at dialogue in Project Phoenix
Marcus and Sylrianah have nothing to say to each other.
Creative Intelligence Arts has shared first screenshots of dialogue in Project Phoenix, its upcoming Kickstarter-funded Japanese strategy RPG for PlayStation 4, PS Vita, PC, iOS, and Android.
“Conversations that your characters will have within the party and with NPCs will be what drives the story forward, allowing you to be invested in the characters and immersed in the game world,” the studio said in an update.
“Many JRPGs have provided us with ways in which to implement this, and to make it easy, we settled upon a system in which you’ll see the character portraits accompanied by a dialogue box, with the super-deformed characters in the background.”
The developer notes that the illustrations shown in the images are “general examples” that should “hopefully get the point across.”
Outside of dialogue examples, Anton, a member of the game’s story team, has provided an update on the title’s story development.
“This week, I have been expanding existing side quest chains in the first three acts of the game,” Anton said. “I have also been going back through past readings from a Psychology degree I completed in Sydney some time ago. This is in an effort to flesh out the main characters’ personalities and really bring them to life, complete with strengths, weaknesses and fears.
“Nobody is perfect, life imitates art imitates life. The story arc and story engine is crucial to making a connection with the observer, and this is what I am devoting the lion’s share of my time to on Project Phoenix: the psychological makeup of the characters, their choices and motivations, their secrets and their internal battles. All that is required to make them whole.”
Project Phoenix is due out in mid-2015.