Conglangs in Adventure Games

[Dualnames]

I really, really want to do this in my game.  However, it's a lot of work, and I'm not sure if I want to do it if it detracts from the game overall.

Just do it then.

Start small and create a basic scenario that implements it. Personally, I think it depends on the game and particularly its style. In a wide-open game like The Sims, it works great. If it's some gritty Film Noir game, probably not. Maybe an option

Also see the druidic (I think it was of such) alphabet used in the Ultima games. It was only used on signs as far as I remember, so it was a neat little diversion for a player to translate something and it wasn't crucial to do so.

Let's just nevermind games. Remember Tolkien's LOTR? The elves language? It sounded cool..and well, it was based on an ancient dialect.
Thing is if you create a language yourself that doesn't have random words(like you have two sentences where a word appears differently) it might work. As for yes, usually game feature just a little bit of random language.

To be fair, Tolkien himself was a linguistic expert and English teacher, hence how Sindarin works very well as an actual language. Not that I want to dissuade people, but it is a big task to accomplish. Tho Fan in Bioware's Jade Empire RPg was interesting but a quick google shows that some people (Including Asians) didn't think it was so great.

Apparently. Well put. Can't really add much apart from the fact that for example in HHGTG movie , I think the Vogons without the Babelfish sound good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUwlSwifHw

This is a total breach of copyright..can't imagine how youtube allows it by the way.

[MoodyBlues]

Thanks for all your input, guys.  I feel a lot more confident about my idea now.

I really, really want to do this in my game.  However, it's a lot of work, and I'm not sure if I want to do it if it detracts from the game overall.

Just do it then.

Good advice.  I think I will.

I should probably clarify that I'm not using my conlang for any puzzles (so far, anyway); it's mostly there to convey a sense of otherworldliness to the game.  And it's the only speech the player will hear throughout the game, not a language that only a few secondary foreign characters use.  I figure this won't be a problem since most adventure games, regardless of their languages, have "subtitles" anyway.

By the way, thanks for mentioning Captain Blood; that game used a conlang in a very creative way.  Ever played Commander Blood?  Judging from what I've seen, that game was friggin' bizarre. 

[Trent R]

Recently I've been playing Twilight Princess, and Midna actually speaks a really cool language. And I think some of the other characters speak tiny bits of Japanese...


~Trent