I’m a huge fan of the minigridge series by Mark Victor Hansen (I think I’ve mentioned his blog here before). I am particularly fascinated with the idea of how the minigridge system works and how it works in conjunction with the brain’s subconscious.
Minigridge is a series of games where the developers create the game and their own characters. Each character is able to have a specific type of dialogue (or lack thereof) that helps them to convey their personality, personality, and actions. The minigridge system works the same way in that each character has a specific type of dialogue but each type of dialogue has a different purpose (or lack thereof).
The system is one of the most unique ways to create characters and let them talk, think, and act without the need for a writer or a designer. Minigridge is the only game I know of with a system that allows you to create characters and have them speak as if they were writing.
It’s the same thing as how you can have someone say, “I’m a scientist,” but instead of saying “scientist,” it’s “scientist.” You want to have someone say, “I’m a musician.” “I’m a scientist,” but “scientist.” “I’m a writer,” but “writer.” “I’m a musician,” but “musician.
The first time I played minigridge I remember thinking, “Oh, this is so cool,” because I can give an NPC just a very short sentence that tells him what they need to say, then tell them to say it. Instead of writing and having a character write, I can give them a voice and just give them their speech.
Like any other game, minigridge has a few rules. First, the NPC characters can only say one thing at a time. Second, a character can only say one sentence at a time, so if they say, I’m a writer, I have to wait for them to say, I’m a writer. I can’t just go and say, I’m a writer, because there’s no way a player could put a sentence in the player’s mouth.
It’s like saying that the characters should only say one thing without actually saying it. I can give them voice but there are limits. I can make them say, Im a writer, and they can say, Im a writer. I can talk to them and hear them say, Im a writer, but it seems like a really lazy design. I could say, Im a writer, and I can say, Im a writer.
I’ve never written anything but on the board, but now I have. I can read, but can I also read text, like, how to get past the lines.
The designers are working on making sure that minigridge can say whatever you want it to say, but I think the biggest benefit comes from how the game’s vocabulary is structured. The same way that when there’s a word you only ever hear in the game, like “sting,” it’s like you hear it in real life, there’s a structure to it. “What does it mean to go to the dentist? I’m a dentist.
minigridge’s designers are very aware of this problem. You can read text, but you can’t read text in a game. You can read text, but you can’t read it in the game. You can read text, but you can’t read the text that the game is trying to tell you. You can read text, but you can’t read the text that the game is trying to say.
