character speech vs text boxes

[Anarcho]

I know it would be a bear to program, and could get repetative quick, but what if there were a button on the GUI that gave you access to the player's thoughts?  Maybe it would normally be inactive, but change colors or flash when something else happens and the player is thinking about something new?

Part of why I'm grappling with this question is that a game I'm designing involves a main character that is a mute.  He's also mentally handicapped.  It could lead to interesting gameplay, but it also drastically effects the usability of your average Talk/Look/Interact GUI.  You can't really talk with a mute.

[Snarky]

I know it would be a bear to program, and could get repetative quick, but what if there were a button on the GUI that gave you access to the player's thoughts?Ã,  Maybe it would normally be inactive, but change colors or flash when something else happens and the player is thinking about something new?

You mean like April's diary in TLJ? It worked (exactly) like that. The diary would flash whenever April had made a new entry, and you could then read her reactions to and thoughts about what was going on.

Part of why I'm grappling with this question is that a game I'm designing involves a main character that is a mute.  He's also mentally handicapped.  It could lead to interesting gameplay, but it also drastically effects the usability of your average Talk/Look/Interact GUI.  You can't really talk with a mute.

I have a solution to your problem: don't make a game where the main character is a mentally handicapped mute. 

Another possibility is the soliloquy, where the character turns to address the audience (the player) with an extended speech. Not very realistic, of course, but it can be a cool effect. Having a mute character that can nevertheless talk to the audience could have a certain pathos, I think.

[Anarcho]

Yeah, well inability to talk would be integral to the plot, so either he's a mute and I go with that for a game design or I come up with a completely different game.  I was thinking of having him be able to talk like a normal person, but only with his dead mother.  I really think the inability to talk would lead to some interesting gameplay.

What's TLJ? 

[Snarky]

The Longest Journey. It's been mentioned a couple of times already in this thread.